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THE 


POLITICAL CATECHISM, 

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EXPLANATORY OF THE 

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS 

AND 

CIVIL DISABILITIES 


OF THE 


CATHOLICS OF IRELAND. 


By THOMAS WYSE, Esq. Jun. 

V -< , \ * ■ 

“ Philosophy, Wisdom, Liberty, support each other;—he who will not 
reason, is a bigot;—he who cannot, is a fool;—lie who dares not, is a 
slave.'’—Sir W. Drummond’s Academical Questions. 



LONDON: 

JAMES RIDGWAY, 169, PICCADILLY. 


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LONDON : 

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PRINTED BY T. BRETTELL, RUPERT STREET, HAY MARKET. 

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PREFACE. 


The following Catechism was expressly composed, 
and originally intended, for circulation among the 
people of Ireland, in pursuance of an unanimous 
Vote of the late Catholic Association. The sanction 
of that body would have been solicited, had not its 
dissolution suddenly taken place. The author, there¬ 
fore, considers himself individually responsible for 
the opinions and statements it contains. 

The necessity of such publications, it is to be 
hoped, will shortly be removed, by a complete 
concurrence in his Majesty’s most gracious recom¬ 
mendation, and a continuance of the liberal and 
enlightened policy adopted by his present ministry. 
But as much misconception and unfounded prejudice on 
this subject, still seem to prevail amongst a numerous 
and respectable portion of the Protestant community, 
and which may, probably, survive the settlement ot 
the question, the following pages are submitted to 
the Public, with the view of obviating the injurious 
.tendency of such impressions—justifying the past pro¬ 
ceedings of the Catholic body—and, further, calling 
the attention of every reasonable man to the expe¬ 
diency, and necessity, of an immediate National 
Reconciliation. 


















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POLITICAL CATECHISM. 


FIRST SECTION. 


WHAT IS A BRITISH FREEMAN? 

Question. What are you ? 

Answer. By religion, a Catholic ; by birth, an Irishman ; 
and, by the constitution of the empire and the Act of Union, 
I ought to be a British freeman. 

Q. What do you mean by a British L Jeman ? 

A. I mean the man who fully enjoys all the franchises and 

liberties, which of right belong to a freeborn Briton. 

# 

Q. What do you mean by a Briton ? 

A. I mean every individual, whoever he may be, who 
happens to have been born in the British Empire. 

Q. Is Ireland a part of the British empire ? 

A. It is an integral and most important part. 

Q. How came it to be such ? 

A. First—By the annexation of that country to the crown 
of England, consequent on the subjugation or concession of 
its native princes; and, secondly, and more especially, by 
the solemn Act of the international Union. 

Q. An Irishman is, then, as much a Briton as an 
Englishman ? 

A. Certainly; a native of Dublin is as much a Briton as 
a native of London. 

B 








(3 


Q. Has an Englishman, then, any right to claim, in a 
national point of view, any superiority over an Irishman ? 

A. None whatever. England is not more a portion of the 
British Empire than Ireland ; nor an Irishman less a Briton 
than an Englishman. 

Q. What do you think, then, of such as claim this 
superiority ? 

A. If ignorant of facts, I compassionate their ignorance; 
if otherwise, I think they aim at the separation of the 
connection. 

Q. How so ? 

A. Because, in telling an Irishman that his country is a 
dependant on a master nation, they, in other words, tell him 
that he is that which the inhabitants of no nation in the 
world ought to submit to, a moment longer than they can 
otherwise avoid it. 

Q. You think, then, that if Irishmen were not acknow¬ 
ledged co-equal and co-ordinate with Englishmen,—in other 
words, were not acknowledged to be trueborn Britons, they 
would have a right to separate from England on the first 
opportunity ? 

A. I do; inasmuch as I think no nation ought to consent, 
if it can possibly avoid it, to its own degradation. 

Q. Do you think that an Englishman, or other, who 
desires the separation of the two islands, in other words, the 
breaking off of the connexion, is an enemy to England ? 

A. I do. 

Q. Why so ? 

A. Because, from its neighbourhood, from its resources, 
from its population, from the courage and vigour and intel¬ 
lect of its inhabitants, Ireland has the means of contributing 
to the power and prosperity and security of England, and 
depriving her of such means by separation, is, in fact, 
depriving England of so much happiness, power, and 
prosperity, which would otherwise belong to her. 


7 


Q. Is it proved by fact that England has derived those 
advantages from Ireland ? 

A. She has partially. 

Q. But why not completely ? 

A. Not through any deficiency in the country itself. If 
we look at the state, physical and moral, of the island, we 
shall find, in whatever age we take her up, that she has 
uniformly presented these advantages to England. She has 
always had a mild climate, a fertile soil, numerous harbours, 
every capability for internal and external commerce, an 
energetic and intellectual population, every advantage which 
another nation would look to, when on the point of choosing 
an ally or a colony. 

Q. In whom, then, is the fault ? 

A. In England, and in those whom England has set over her. 

Q. How is England in fault ? 

A. By neglecting to inform herself sufficiently of the 
state and the resources of this country, deriving her in¬ 
formation through prejudiced and interested channels, by 
applying her information, not to its improvement, but to 
its injury; in other words, by increasing the evils, and not 
profiting by the advantages of Ireland. 

Q. How have her governors been in fault ? 

A. By preferring their own private and short-lived 
advantage to the public weal;—by converting the country 
into a farm, and holding it as a sort of middle men between 
England and Ireland;—by totally neglecting the feelings and 
opinions and character of the large portion of the inha¬ 
bitants ;—by studiously misrepresenting them abroad, that 
they might more easily retain the power of oppressing them 
at home;—by maintaining the country in a state of constant 
tumult, that there might thus be required large armies 
and navies, a rich church, and a most expensive executive; 
in other words, that there might be numerous employments 
of all kinds for their ambition and avidity. 


8 


Q. Was this always the case in Ireland ? 

A. Always: from the invasion of Henry II. to Eliza¬ 
beth ; from Elizabeth to the Union ; from the Union clown 
to the present day, Ireland has been uniformly misgoverned 
by England. 

Q. How was Ireland misgoverned during the period from 
Henry II. to Elizabeth ? 

A. The dissensions between the native princes, the 
treachery of one, the feebleness of the other, invited over a 
few of the English nobles, who invaded, plundered, and 
kept it. They betrayed the interests of the sovereign, 
under whose name they came, and they attacked the 
interests of the people amongst whom they came. The 
natives petitioned Henry for protection, for the extension 
of the Charter of England to Ireland: it was promised—it 
was withheld. The country, which had yielded on the 
faith of treaties, was governed like a country that had been 
conquered. The Irish at last repelled the aggression. 
They defended their laws, their property, their persons, 
against a succession of new adventurers, and worse free¬ 
booters, who owned no sovereign, no country, and no God. 
Thus were established on the soil two hostile nations, con¬ 
stantly varying their boundaries, the English of the Pale, and 
the pure Irish. England, or rather the English sovereigns, 
looked on; they had neither the power nor the will to 
controul them. The war continued: by degrees the en¬ 
croachments on the native territory increased. In the reign 
of Elizabeth a sort of partial dominion was established in 
Ireland. 

Q. Did this improve in the succeeding period from Eliza¬ 
beth to the Union ? 

A. Far from it! a new source of dissension arose. The 
country had been divided between Irish and English. It 
was now again divided between Protestant and Catholic. 
The struggle between all these parties continued with fresh 


9 


violence. Ireland was gradually subdued, more by internal 
dissension than external arms. But though the demarcation 
of the two races were less visible, the division between the 
two religions became much more strong. Ireland was 
never a convert to the Reformation. The Anglican church, 
a staff without a regiment, shepherds without a flock, was 
superadded to the Catholic. The English Parliament and 
the English Church was the Parliament and Church of a 
colony. The Nation was left out. All their laws were 
of course partial, not for the benefit of the country or the 
many, but for the benefit of the oligarchy or the few. The 
viceroys plundered, persecuted; excited, that they might 
crush ; oppressed, that they might spoil: James confiscated ; 
Charles deceived ; Cromwell extirpated ; and the ungrateful 
Charles II. and the cowardly James II. surrendered them 
to the arms and cruelties of new invaders. William came, 
and found the victory which another lost. He might have 
united the country into one, he might have ruled over 
a nation, instead of a faction, he might have extinguished 
Catholic and Protestant in Irishmen, and Irishmen and 
Englishmen in Briton. He preferred continuing the feeble 
policy of the bad governments he had dethroned. The 
former great distinctions were perpetuated, and a solemn 
treaty, which might have suppressed them, was violated; an 
increasing nation was kept in a constant state of excitation, 
and pains and penalties were necessary to bind it down. 
A code, infamous amongst nations, was found necessary 
to maintain a Christian constitution in its vigour. The 
nation was delivered up to a favoured faction, the faction 
was again governed by a few adventurous political specula¬ 
tors, the constitution became an oligarchy,—Ireland divided, 
feeble, impoverished, turbulent, was scorned by England, 
and unknown, except by her degradation, to the rest of 
Europe. 

Q. But was she not in some degree regenerated by the 
exertions of the Irish Volunteers in 1782 P 


10 


A. No; she might have been regenerated, but she was 
not. The resolution of 1782 was not a revolution, but a 
temporary insurrection of the aristocracy against the factious 
tyranny of its own rulers at home, and the jealous oppres¬ 
sions of the English Cabinet abroad. The Protestants were 
consulted—the Dissenters were consulted—the Catholics 
were not consulted—they were termed, by the Irish Legis¬ 
lature—the common enemy. They were declared by an 
Irish Chancellor, in the contemplation of the law, not to 
exist. Yet it was notorious at the time, to every traveller 
through Ireland, that they formed the great majority of the 
nation : it was proved, by repeated trials, that they were more 
than loyal, trampled to the earth, slavish. It was not probable 
that the effort of a fraction of one country against the 
sum total of the inhabitants of another, could succeed. 
England yielded for a moment—she stooped to rise; she 
relaxed the reins to draw them tighter ; her dominion was 
not lost, but in abeyance. The revolution of 82, as it 
ought to have done, Jailed. 

Q. What was the consequence ? 

A. The oft-repeated consequence of every effort for the 
regeneration of Ireland. England, afraid of another 82, 
dreading that experience at last might make wise, deter¬ 
mined on an Union. A similar effort led to a similar 
consequence in Scotland. The oligarchy, deserted by their 
former servants, grateful for the support of the Cabinet, 
clung more steadily to England. In their hands was a 
large portion of the legislative, and much the largest of 
the executive, power. They were seduced by their fears, 
their wants, their wishes—the party of their opponents had 
dwindled. They stood alone. They sold Ireland and its in¬ 
terests for the gold of England. To do it easily, they kindled 
an abrupt rebellion; and the rebellion produced, in a mo¬ 
ment of re-action and collapse, the Legislative Union. 

Q. How has Ireland been governed since the Legislative 
Union ? 


11 


A. The Union was passed without a general appeal to the 
people. They were kept ignorant of the feelings of each 
other. The Catholic was played against the Protestant, 
and the Protestant against the Catholic. The Protestants 
were sacrificed by their leaders for place, title, and pension; 
the Catholics, by their false friends in the Ministry, with the 
promises of Emancipation. The Union was passed. Both 
were injured. 

Q. How so ? 

A. The Protestants obtained nothing. Their chiefs gave 
up a reality for a shadow—the pledge to the Catholic was 
not redeemed. Ireland continued to be misgoverned. 

Q. But was not the Union in itself an advantage ? 

A. It would have been an advantage, if it really were 
what it purported to be, an incorporation of the two 
countries. 

Q. What do you mean by an incorporation ? 

A. I mean by an incorporation, a perfect mixing of one 
body with the other—a perfect identity of one country with 
the other. 

Q. What do you mean by the identity of one country 
with the other ? 

A. I do not mean a geographical identity, but a perfect 
identity of rights, laws, and interests. 

Q. You mean, then, that, to be properly united with 
Great Britain, or, in other words, to be truly British , 
Ireland should enjoy the same rights, be governed by the 
same laws, and have the same interests, as Great Britain ? 

A. In proportion as she enjoys this identity, she is 
united, or British; in proportion as she wants oi% loses this 
identity, she ceases to be so. 

Q. To say that she is united, or British, wanting this 
identity, is an absurdity ? 

A. An obvious absurdity. 


12 


Q. It is not, then, sufficient you should be born in the 
British Empire in order to be British—you must also have 
the advantages attached to such birth ? 

A. Certainly. 

Q. To pay taxes, and contributions, then, of blood and 
treasure, and support, by her population and her resources, 
the exigencies of the state, does not constitute identity ? 

A. No; it is to be a colony, a tributary, a subject 
country, not an integral, co-equal portion of the ruling 
state. 

Q. But what are the advantages of the ruling state; what 
are the advantages of being born British ? 

A. The first great advantage is, to be born a freeman. 

Q. What do you understand by a freeman ? 

A. I understand the being a free agent. 

Q. How do you mean by being a free agent ? 

A. Governing by one’s own laws, and for one's own use 
and benefit. 

Q. How can you govern by your own laws P 

A. By the consent of our representatives in Parliament. 

Q. What do you mean by your representatives ? 

A. As, in a large state, it is impossible for all the in¬ 
dividuals who compose it to assemble together, for the 
regulation of their affairs, it has been found expedient 
to send, for that purpose, a certain number of persons 
possessed of their confidence, to whom such a charge is 
entrusted or delegated. They may, therefore, be called 
attornies, delegates, deputies, or representatives. 

Q. These representatives, then, are bound to express the 
wishes of these individuals; or, in other words, of the 
people ? 

A. Certainly. They are sent by the people, and for 
the purpose of expressing the wishes of the people. The 
very name, representative, means that they represent, as 


13 


the glass represents the object reflected in it, the will and 
wishes of the people. 

Q. The representative, then, who, being so sent by the 
people, does not represent the wishes of those who sent 
him, is not, properly speaking, a representative of the 
people ? 

A. Certainly not. 

Q. What do you think of such a representative ? 

A. Precisely what I should think of an attorney, who, 
having received a commission from his client, should, when 
occasion called, violate, or neglect it. 

Q. What do you understand by the will and wishes 
of the people ? 

A. I. That they should not be taxed without their own 
consent; that is to say, that no tax should be imposed 
which did not receive, either by their own votes, or by 
the votes of their representatives, the full consent and 
sanction of the people who are to pay it. 

Q. What is the second ? 

A. II. That no man’s person, or life, should be at the 
discretion of his fellow-citizen; but should be under the 
protection of just and equal laws. 

Q. What is the third ? 

A. III. Perfect eligibility? without distinction of sect or 
creed, to all places of trust or emolument in the state. 

Q. What is the fourth ? 

A. IV. Perfect freedom of opinion, where it does not 
overtly , and in action , interfere with the happiness and 
security of the community. 

Q. What is the fifth ? 

A. V. Perfect freedom in the expression of opinion, 
where it does not overtly interfere with the happiness and 
security of the community. 

Q. T hese franchises once established and enjoyed, you 
conceive that freedom is adequately secured ? 


14 


A. I do. All that is most dear to man, is adequately and 
permanently secured from violation. 

Q. But how may these franchises be best established ? 

A. In the country, and with the habits and circumstances 
under which we live, by the British Constitution. 

Q. How does the British Constitution tend to secure 
these franchises ? 

A. By a wise admixture of the executive, legislative, and 
judicial powers. 

Q. In what manner does it tend to secure the first of 
these franchises ? 

A. By the establishment of a Representative House, or 
House of Commons, who, chosen by the people, are alone 
empowered to levy imposts, and to pass taxes on the 
people. 

Q. How is the second secured ? 

A. By the principle, that every man should be judged 
by a jury of his peers;—should not be judged twice for the 
same offence;—and should not be held guilty until he shall 
be judged. 

Q. What do you mean by a jury of one’s peers ? 

A. The literal meaning of peer, is equal. When I say a 
jury of one’s peers, I mean, therefore, a jury of persons 
of equal, or nearly of equal rank to the accused ; of persons 
sympathizing with the accused in his interests and feelings; 
of persons, in fine, who may be most fitted, by situation, 
opinion, rank in life, to judge fairly and impartially of 
the accused. 

Q. What advantage results from his not being liable to be 
judged a second time for the same offence ? 

A. This,—that he is not subjected to vexatious and 
unlimited prosecution, and exposed to the arbitrary pursuit 
of any individual whatsoever in power. 

Q. You think, then, that this is a great security for the 
liberty of the subject ? 


15 


A. The very greatest. If we recur to history, and par¬ 
ticularly to Irish history, we shall find, that the non-obser¬ 
vance of this principle was the chief cause of every atrocious 
infringement of the personal liberty of the subject. 

Q. And on what grounds ? 

A. Because, as the verdict of his equals has, in one 
instance, declared the accused innocent, it is virtually im¬ 
pugning such verdict, and taking away all reliance upon the 
voice of your fellow-citizens. 

Q. But might there not be a court of appeal ? 

A. It should only be allowed in favour of the convicted. 
If in favour of the prosecutor, it would lead to endless 
abuse. 

Q. If a man, then, is to be judged by his peers only, it 
follows, that he cannot on one side be judged by his superiors, 
and on the other, he cannot be a judge in his own cause ? 

A. Certainly. The first would lead to the oppression of 
the innocent; the other, to the acquittal of the guilty. 

Q. A man, you have observed, is not to be judged guilty 
until his guilt shall have been proved. What advantages 
result from this ? 

A. It secures a man from arbitrary penalties and punish¬ 
ments ; for, if he cannot be punished until judged, and it be 
necessary he should be judged by his peers, or a jury of 
twelve honest men, whose verdict must be unanimous to be 
effective, it is to be presumed that he cannot be punished 
unless really guilty: in other words, that the innocent are 
secured from all violation of their liberty. 

Q. But does this secure him from arbitrary arrest and 
detention in prison previous to his trial ? 

A. He is secured from arbitrary arrest on the same prin¬ 
ciple, but in a more modified manner than from capital or 
other punishment, by the necessity which the law imposes of 
previous informations, sworn before a credible magistrate, 
and by two credible witnesses ; from detention in prison he is 


16 * 


secured, by the obligation which the law imposes of having 
him indicted the first term after his committal, and tried the 
first term after his indictment. 

Q. What other guarantee has the accused against arbi¬ 
trary arrest and detention ? 

A. Many. Amongst them, he can compel, by a writ of 
habeas corpus , the gaoler to produce in court the body of 
the prisoner, and to certify the cause of his detainer and 
imprisonment. If the gaol lie within twenty miles of the 
judge, the writ must be obeyed within three days, and so 
proportionably for greater distances. Against arbitrary 
detention, he has the remedy of an action for false imprison¬ 
ment, &c. 

Q. What guarantees has the prisoner against unfair pro¬ 
ceedings after his committal, and during his trial ? 

A. He is not permitted to accuse himself, nor can he be 
convicted, except on the evidence of two credible wit¬ 
nesses. 

Q. The rights of person and property are thus secured : 
how is the third security which you have pointed out, the 
security which assures to each person the just rewards of 
his exertion, established ? 

A. It is impossible to secure either life or property, or to 
assure to each person the just rewards of his exertion, 
without the third great security for freedom, the perfect 
eligibility to all places of trust, rank, and emolument in the 
state. 

« 

Q. What do you mean by perfect eligibility ? 

A. I mean, that every person who contributes, either by 
purse or person, to the wants or exigencies of the state, has 
a just title to his share of the advantages of such a state. 

Q. What do you mean by his share of the advantages of 
the state ? 

A. I mean, such as he may be entitled or eligible to by 
situation, education, or public services. 


17 


Q. Do you mean by perfect, the eligibility of every man 
in the state ? 

A. Certainly, of all; without any exception of class, creed, 
or person, unless of such only as may be incapacitated by 
want of intellect, or by crime. 

Q. Do you think, then, that giving this eligibility to 
some, and refusing it to others, is perfect eligibility? 

A. Far from it; such an eligibility is, in fact, an ineligi¬ 
bility : it is a monopoly, and an injustice. 

Q. How is it a monopoly, and an injustice? 

A. Because it confines to one portion of citizens what 
belongs to all, it is a monopoly ; because it takes from all 
contributions, and at the same time renders back to a few 
only the contributions of all, it is an injustice. 

Q. But in case it should so happen, that a class should 
exist in the state, dangerous by their doctrines to the state, 
should not such a class be excluded from doing injury to 
the state, by exclusion from all eligibility to places of rank, 
emolument, or trust in the state ? 

A. Far from it. 

Q. But why so? 

A. Because it is not just that any man should be 
punished without having first been heard ; because it is not 
just that any man should be punished for mere opinions, 
and not actions; because it is not just that a whole class 
should be punished for the crimes of a few; because it is not 
just that the state should take from any portion of its 
citizens every contribution which is furnished by other classes, 
and at the same time deny to that portion the just return 
which is given to other classes, of such contributions to the 
public. 

Q. How is this unjust? 

A. I consider it to be the same thing in a state as in a 
club, or in a family : were any man, or set of men, to form a 
club, and to exact the subscription of every individual, and 


18 


at the same time to refuse to a certain number of these indi¬ 
viduals the advantages of such an institution, would such 
conduct be considered just, or would the contributors 
remain satisfied with such adjudication ? 

Q. But should the class excluded be the minority , have 
not the majority the right of exclusion for their own safety f 

A. No: it is, as I have already said, an act of injustice, 
to take and not to render back. A state which thinks it 
necessary to exclude from eligibility, ought to begin by 
exonerating such a class from the taxes and other burthens, 
the price paid down for such eligibility to the state. 

Q. But is not the protection of life and property a 
sufficient and adequate reward for such contribution ? 

A. By no means: they contribute like other citizens, they 
ought to have the same number of guarantees, and as 
well secured, as other citizens. Now they have not. Their 
life and property are but inadequately protected, without 
eligibility to office, and their honour and labour are not 
protected or recompensed at all. 

Q. How so ? 

A. Because, by one class being rendered eligible and the 
other not, one will obtain all power and the other none. 
There will be thus two classes in the state, one governing, 
the other not. Such governors must necessarily abuse their 
power, if we are to believe experience. Abusing their power, 
the state must finally be divided between tyrants and slaves. 
There cannot thus be any true guarantee for life or for 
property. The state, where such guarantee exists not, 
cannot be said to be free, nor its inhabitants be justly called 
freemen. 

Q. Is it necessary, then, that every class should possess 
a portion of power ? 

A. Certainly: I conceive a balance of the kind to be 
essential to the security and freedom of a state—to be a 
guarantee of all rights, and a represser of all abuses. A 


19 


state which pretends to maintain its freedom, should lay 
down, as a first principle, “ that all citizens are equal before 
the law .” 

Q. W hat is the fourth security which you think neces¬ 
sary for the maintenance of the freedom of the state ? 

A. The enjoyment of perfect freedom in opinion, when it 
does not overtly, or in action, affect the happiness and 
security of a state. 

Q. Do you mean by this, that every citizen should be at 
liberty to profess what opinions he may think proper ? 

A. With the above exception, unquestionably. 

Q. You would, then, allow the free and unshackled 
exercise of all religious beliefs whatsoever ? 

A. Undoubtedly, of all. 

Q. But would you not, for the safety of the predominant 
religion, place the other religions professed in the state under 
some restrictions ? 

A. Certainly not. 

Q. And why not ? 

A. Because, first, such a religion as would require these 
restrictions would be in effect a persecuting and oppressive 
religion, and it would be better for the state that it did not 
exist at all; secondly, I do not conceive any state has the 
right to persecute an individual, much less whole classes, for 
what is often not in their power. 

Q. But do you not think that such restrictions tend to 
bring all to an uniformity of belief, and that such uniformity 
is a blessing to any state ? 

A. Quite the reverse. I do not think it possible that 
restrictions (such as penal or disqualifying statutes, &c.) can 
in any way tend to bring about such uniformity. Religion 
is belief, and belief is not voluntary : if doctrines are pro¬ 
pounded by means of force, it is in the nature of man, 
particularly when accustomed to free agency in other par¬ 
ticulars, to reject them. We ail know how very odious the 


20 


recollection of many studies have been, merely because 
associated with the recollections of early severity. Neither 
do I see that uniformity of religious worship, or belief in 
a free state, is of an advantage at all to be compared with 
the injury which it inflicts. If the worship be insisted on 
without the belief, it is insisting on an hypocrisy; if on the 
belief also, it produces only a still deeper hypocrisy—even 
in case it were possible, it could only tend to produce a 
monotony in thinking, and an apathy in public action. 

Q. You think, then, that variety of sect should be en¬ 
couraged P 

A. Not encouraged, but permitted. 

Q. But may it not be possible to allow every one the 
free exercise of his religious belief, and at the same time 
to erect such safeguards as may protect the safety of 
the predominant church, or the established religion of the 
state ? 

A. I do not think it possible. Persecution may be of 
various kinds. Some men may feel a wound upon their 
honour much more than a wound upon their flesh. Of the 
latter sort of wounds are all disqualifying statutes: they 
degrade, they humble, they render inferior to other citizens 
in public estimation, and that too for a cause, the justice of 
which, so far from being recognised by the person affected, 
must necessarily be considered as lofty and honourable. 
When you tell a man you may do such and such an act, or 
profess such and such an opinion, if you think proper, but 
at the same time tell him, if you do perform it, or if you do 
profess it, you shall be hanged, or imprisoned, or dishonoured, 
you in fact prohibit him from such act or such belief, under 
such and such a penalty. This is the operation, and almost 
the expression, of all disqualifying laws. A man who tells 
me I shall be excluded from my just share in the constitu¬ 
tion in case I enter a Catholic church, as effectively attempts 
to exclude me from it, as if he held a bayonet across the 



21 


door, and commanded me, at the peril of my life, not to 
enter. 

Q. But should a sect propose doctrines hostile to the civil 
government, or to the liberties of any state, should not such 
doctrines be prohibited from being taught, and should not 
the professors of such doctrine be debarred all share of 
power, lest they might turn it against the freedom of the 
country ? 

A. By no means. Let such doctrines be opposed by 
other doctrines still more sound; in the end, truth will float 
uppermost. Let no man use the sword against thought. If 
the opinion become deed ; if it burst into overt act; the laws 
are always there to punish it: let not a preventive police of 
the kind be established in any country ; it will soon lead to 
espionage, and espionage kills liberty, and prepares the way 
for every species of tyranny. 

Q. But should not the established or predominant church 
have certain privileges, and would not these privileges act in 
some manner as restrictions, and, consequently, as perse¬ 
cutions ? 

A. These privileges should be such as not to interfere 
with the liberty of others. They should not act as dis¬ 
couragements or restrictions. 

Q. Is this easy where a church established already exists ? 

A. It requires considerable caution and care. 

Q. What do you consider as such ? 

A. I consider as such, legislative pre-eminence, tempora¬ 
lities, recognised titles, honours, dignities; all these are 
privileges which, under proper regulations, may be so 
arranged as not to interfere with the liberties and franchises 
of others. 

Q. What do you think of tests, declarations, oaths, &c. ? 

A. I think them persecution, in its most imbecile shape. 

Q. And why so ? 

A. Because the legislature, who uses an oath as a barrier 

c 


22 


against the introduction of a sect, of course supposes such sect 
to believe in the obligation of an oath, and employs thus 
the very existence of that Conscientious feeling which it 
ought to encourage in the citizen against the citizen himself. 
It moreover applies to a temporal and worldly purpose, the 
sacred sanctions of religion, and thus subjects them to 
constant and unnecessary profanation. It is, therefore, 
immoral and irreligious. 

Q. Have you any other objection ? 

A. I said it was imbecile.—The frequent use of oaths 
must, in time, render them nugatory—must demoralize, and 
demoralizing must strike at the root of all that honest and 
upright feeling, without which society cannot permanently 
hold together. When once oaths become trifles, there is no 
guarantee for the law but coward apprehension or mere 
brute force. 

Q. Is this confirmed by experience ? 

A. So much so, that most civilized nations now have 
agreed to retrench them as much as possible, in all the civil 
transactions of life. The manner in which they are eluded 
in our own House of Commons, revenue, exercise of the 
elective franchise, &c., every day, are the justification of 
these nations, and our reproach. 

Q. You would, then, have a perfect toleration of all sects 
in the state ? 

A. Ido not like the word; for it implies a right of resump¬ 
tion in the giver, whenever he may deem proper to resume 
his gift. What I should prefer, would be" an entire equa¬ 
lization of all sects; but as this seems difficult, in a monarchy 
constituted on such principles as that of Great Britain, I 
would have such protection extended to any sect in the 
state as would effectually secure the rights of opinion. 

Q. You would then abolish all restrictions, tests, oaths, 
and such as have hitherto been considered securities to the 
established church ? 


23 


A. Certainly. I would require no other oath from any 
class of citizens, than obedience to the sovereign, and fidelity 
to the constitution. 

Q. Why would you exact no other ? 

A. Because I consider such oath as sufficient for the secu- 
rity of the sovereign and the permanence of the constitution ; 
and, at the same time, neither deprives such as the citizen 
of his rights, nor the state of the services of all its citizens. 

Q. Do you consider these rights co-equal ? 

A. Yes: general constitutional law, and our own parti¬ 
cular constitution, assume that whilst the people, on one 
side, have a title to their franchises, the king, on his, has a 
right to the services of all his subjects, and the state a right 
to the services of all its citizens. 

Q. You consider, then, any test which violates or limits 
this right a violation of justice and the constitution ? 

A. Yes: I consider such tests highly unconstitutional; 
they are infractions or restrictions of the British constitution. 

Q. So far we have spoken of religious belief. Do you 
think it right that every citizen should be allowed to profess 
what opinions he thinks proper on the subject of govern¬ 
ment and administration ? 

A. Unquestionably. The government exists only for the 
use and benefit of the governed, and it is only by a com¬ 
parison of the ideas of the governed, one with the other, that 
a government can be restrained in its errors or abuses, or 
prevented from falling into despotism or neglect. 

Q. But should any of those opinions be hostile to the 
existing order of things, for the security of the constitution, 
ought they not to be restrained ? 

A. By no means. A constitution which depends only on 
the repression of truth, or the ignorance of the governed, 
cannot and ought not to endure. 

Q. But would you not establish some restrictions on the 
publication or circulation of such doctrines ? 


9A 


A. None whatever, in the way of prevention. If the 
doctrine or opinion so inculcated inflict an injury, for that 
injury the individual should be responsible, and punished. 

Q. And why not in the way of prevention ? 

A. Because, from its want of publicity, and on other 
grounds above stated, such restriction is liable to every 
abuse. 

Q. You think, then, that the publicity or publication of 
opinion is essential to the freedom and security of a state ? 

A. Certainly. It is the fifth great guarantee for the 
liberty of the subject. 

Q. How ought this publicity to be exercised ? 

A. In every reasonable way—by public meetings, by 
public petition, by the publication of all the acts of govern¬ 
ment, by the full and free publication of opinion on all 
such acts. 

Q. How do you mean by public meetings P 

A. I mean, that every citizen should be at liberty to 
convene, and meet together, for the purpose of pronouncing 
on objects of public interest. 

Q. But in case their declaration of opinion should tend to 
disturb the public peace ? 

A. For such offences, the law has, in its armoury, suffi¬ 
cient weapons.—Public meetings, like every other social act, 
should not be prevented for any abuses to which they 
might, by possibility, lead. 

Q. Why should petition be considered so sacred ? 

A. Because it is of the utmost importance that the governed 
should have the means of placing their grievances before the 
governor; and no other means appear so just, so peaceable, 
or so natural, as petition. 

Q. Should any restriction be placed upon the rights of 
petition ? 

A. None whatever, consistent with the respect due to the 
power petitioned. 


OK 

rtf 

Q. Is it right that the acts of government should be 
published ? 

A. Not only right, but necessary. 

Q. How, necessa^ ? 

A. Government is for the use of the governed. The 
governed cannot ascertain whether the government is of use 
or injury, unless acquainted with their acts. 

Q. How do you apply this rule ? Is it right, for instance, 
that the public should be admitted into the House of 
Commons, and that the press should be permitted to publish 
their deliberations ? 

A. Certainly. The constituent cannot judge of his repre¬ 
sentative otherwise; and it is impossible, without such judg¬ 
ment, that he can choose aright. 

Q. Would you permit every citizen to pronounce on the 
acts of the government ? 

A. Unquestionably; every citizen is affected by such 
acts. 

Q. Would you not make some exception for the sovereign, 
the minister, the two houses, &c. ? 

A. For the king certainly. It is essential, in a hereditary 
monarchy, that the responsibility should rest with the 
minister: this is the meaning of the hyperbolical expression, 
that i( the king can do no wrong . 11 But in proportion as 
the king is exempt, the minister ought to be subject to such 
inquiry and attack. As the executive should be under the 
inspection of the public, so much more should the legislature, 
which, indirectly and directly, ought to emanate from, and be 
under the immediate controul of the public. 

Q. Would you interfere with the character of the indivi¬ 
duals ? 

A. In proportion only as individuals interfered with, or 
affected the interests of the public. 

Q. Would you consider truth an extenuation of such 
attack P 


26 


A. Certainly. If the individual be guilty of the crimes 
laid to his charge, he deserves the punishment inflicted on 
him by public opinion, and this the more so, as it is often 
the only punishment which can be inflicted. If not, the 
injury inflicted upon a man’s character ought to be 
punished like any injury undeservedly inflicted on his 
property and person. In proportion as public opinion is 
free and general, this injury ought to be redressed with 
greater severity: the injury is greater, for it is more ex¬ 
tensive. 

Q. You think, then, that the liberty of the press should 
be allowed the very widest extension ? 

A. Certainly. I consider it not only as a great guarantee, 
but the greatest; it is a liberty, the guardian of all other 
liberties. 

Q. Do you think that these guarantees are sufficient to 
make and preserve free ? 

A. If honestly and perseveringly exercised, I do. 

Q. On whom does such exercise depend ? 

A. On the governed. 

Q. Why on the governed ? 

A. Because it is not to be supposed there will be any real 
or continued exertion where there is not some real and impel¬ 
ling interest. Now, it is much more the interest of the 
governed, that such guarantees should be upheld, than of 
the governors. 

Q. But does not the government also benefit ? 

A. Undoubtedly: every minister is likewise a citizen, 
therefore governor and governed. It is also true, that the 
government abstractedly benefits. No government, where 
the people are unhappy and ill-treated, can be flourishing or 
secure : acquiescence is very different from content, and it is 
not in the nature of things that men can be content with 
injustice. Equality or equal share, in all the advantages of 
a social state, is the first condition of justice: publicity is the 


27 


next. No minister can know how to make a people happy, 
in other words, can be just , unless he knows their wants. 
He cannot know their wants where there is no publicity ; 
where there is no publicity there is no public opinion ; and 
where there is no public opinion, he will alternately become 
a timid tyrant or an insolent slave. 

Q. Why then do you say the governed are more interested 
than the government ? 

A. The interest of the governed to be governed well, is 
obvious, for it is uncounteracted by any other interest. Not 
so the minister’s. A crowd of selfish and personal motives 
interfere with his solicitude for the general and more distant 
interest of the state. 

Q. But how is the governed, or the people, to uphold 
these guarantees ? 

A. By the strictest vigilance, determination, and per¬ 
severance. It is a duty imposed upon every member of the 
great family, high and low, to see in his respective sphere, 
that the bonds which keep it together should be kept unim- 

Q. Do you think this duty of great moral obligation ? 

A. Of the most imperative moral obligation. It is of the 
same quality (though more extensive) as love of parents, 
conjugal love, love of children, &c. 

Q. Do you inculcate, then, jealousy of all acts of the 
government ? 

A. A just and rational jealousy. If well and steadily 
exercised, the government, for its own sake, will soon learn 
not to exceed the just limits of its power. 

Q. Are such guarantees recognised by the British constitu¬ 
tion ? 

A. They are in theory, and for the most part in practice. 

Q. How in theory ? 

A. The British constitution secures the right of repre¬ 
sentation, or self-taxation, and self-government; rights of 



28 


justice; rights of opinion; rights of publicity. They are 
all recognised, more or less, in theory. 

Q. And why not in practice ? 

A. Every ancient government must of course contract 
abuse; but the British constitution has also this additional 
disadvantage, that it was formed at various times, by various 
individuals, with various, and often inconsistent views; con¬ 
sequently, though the above principles form, or are pre¬ 
sumed to form, its basis, they are enforced, or secured, by 
means the most contradictory and inconsistent. The British 
constitution is a system of liberty founded on tyranny,—an 
enlightened government rising out of ignorance and feudalism. 

Q. Abounding then in anomalies, is it not dangerous to 
touch it ? 

A. No, if such reform be gradual, temperate, and judi¬ 
cious. Every person who comes to such a task, ought to be 
well acquainted not only with what he proposes to give , but 
with what he proposes to take away. Without this, his 
alteration may possibly not cohere with other unaltered 
parts of the system. These incoherencies, if many and 
rapid, will ultimately lead to the dissolution of the entire. 

Q. We ought, therefore, to respect the wisdom of our 
ancestors ? 

A. Within certain bounds we ought, where that wisdom 
is really w T ise : generally speaking, the wisdom of the past is 
the folly of the present. The error arises from our con¬ 
sidering the past and the present in the relation of father 
and children;—now the reverse is the case. If greater or 
juster experience be considered the qualification, we are the 
fathers, and they are the children. 

Q. You do not consider the British constitution im¬ 
mutable ? 

A. No. If I could be guilty of such an absurdity in 
theory, experience would soon refute me in practice. 

Q. How so ? 


29 


A. The constitution is only the expression of the habits 
and opinions of different periods. These opinions and habits 
have changed, and must change—the constitution has 
changed, and must change with them. 

Q. We ought, then, to apply this experience to correct 
its defects, incoherencies, or mistakes ? 

A. Certainly, it is the duty of every citizen. We ought 
to try to make British freedom as free and as British as 
we possibly can. In other words, we ought to endeavour to 
extend to every inhabitant of the empire as great a share of 
the blessings of the constitution as can well be enjoyed, con¬ 
sistently with the rights and happiness of all. We ought 
to try to bring the practice as near to the theory of that 
constitution as is in the power of fallible beings, working 
with inadequate instruments and for short periods, like our¬ 
selves. 




SECOND SECTION. 


IS AN IRISH CATHOLIC A BRITISH 

FREEMAN ? 

Question. You have explained what you understand by a 
British freeman, is every citizen entitled to that appellation ? 

Answer. No. 

Q. Who are so entitled ? 

A. The great majority of the English, Scotch, and a 
small portion of the Irish. 

Q. Then all the Irish are not entitled ? 

A. No: the Irish Catholic is excluded from the privileges 
of a British freeman ? 

Q. The Irish Catholic is not, then, a British freeman; 
and why do you not consider him a British freeman ? 

A. I have already stated, that by British is to be under¬ 
stood, not merely a geographical identity of Ireland with 
Great Britain, but communion in the same rights, in the 
same laws, in the same government, and, as much as 
possible, in the same interests. 

Q. Are not the Irish Catholics so identified ? 

A. No ! but very much the contrary. 

Q. Why are they not to be considered as identified ? 

A. Though geographically connected, they do not enjoy 
the same laws, the same government, the same interests, as 
the other inhabitants of Great Britain. 





31 


Q. And this you consider a sufficient evidence why they 
should not be considered British ? 

A. Yes : for if identity or connection of territory, that is, 
geographical identity, were alone sufficient, then the Helots 
of Sparta might have been considered the same people as 
their masters. 

Q. How is the Irish Catholic governed by different laws 
from the other citizens of Great Britain ? 

A. The Irish Catholic is governed by laws, in the making 
of which he has not sufficient share,—administered by an 
executive to which he is not eligible, and cannot therefore 
have the same interests as those of the other citizens of 
Great Britain, who have enjoyed, and do enjoy these 
advantages. 

Q. Why not? 

A. It is the tendency of every human being to desire to 
better his condition. When an Irish Catholic sees himself 
thus degraded by the laws and government and interests of 
the other classes of the state, he naturally finds himself 
opposed to what he considers the causes of such degradation; 
and, finding himself so opposed, recurs to every effort to 
alter them in his favour. 

Q. Is not this, then, a mere contest for power and ascen¬ 
dancy, and if it be justifiable in the Catholic the attempting 
to acquire it, why should it not be justifiable in a Protes¬ 
tant in attempting to retain it ? 

A. Were the contest for mere superiority between equals, 
the struggle might not only be natural but pardonable; but 
the struggle actually is, for equality on one side, and for 
ascendancy on the other. 

Q. You think, then, the Irish Catholic below the scale of 
other citizens, and consequently is not free ? 

A. I do, most certainly. 

Q. And on what ground do you think that he is not 

free ? 


32 


A. Because he is not in the enjoyment of the several 
guarantees or franchises in which freedom essentially consists. 

Q. Is he not, for instance, in the enjoyment of that first 
right—the right of self-government ? 

A. No. 

Q. Does he not enjoy the right of representation ? 

A. To a certain extent, he does; as far as the right 
of choosing, but not as far as the right of being chosen. 

Q. How does he possess the right of choosing ? 

A. Every registered forty-shilling has, in Ireland, the 
right of voting. 

Q. Is this privilege of importance ? 

A. Of the highest. It must, sooner or later, give every 
other, if well exercised. 

Q. How do you mean well exercised ? 

A. The object of allowing any man to vote in the choice 
of Members of Parliament, is, that every man who is 
interested in the state, may have an opportunity of choosing 
the man he thinks will most consult his true interests. 
A voter, then, who intends to exercise as he should his 
vote, ought to inquire precisely into three things ? 

Q. What are they ? 

A. First,—into what are his true interests, and the true 
interests of the country; secondly, whether the candidate 
be qualified to promote them; and, thirdly, whether, if 
chosen, he be as willing as he is qualified to do so. 

Q. But for this he requires instruction and information ? 

A. Certainly; and without this instruction he can never 
exercise such choice as he ought. It is proved by the 
experience of the past and of the present. 

Q. How of the past ? 

A. Formerly, the forty-shilling freeholders voted under 
the guidance and by the commands of their landlords, 
without any reference to their public interests, the merits 
of the candidate, or their public duty. 


33 


Q. Do you mean to say, when the candidate was oppsoed 
to their interests, when—for instance, he was not qualified, 
or willing to consult them—that they so voted ? 

A. Precisely. In three provinces of Ireland the majority 
of the electors are Catholics; in many parts of these 
three provinces, the candidates have frequently been, and 
still often are Anti-Catholic. 

Q. What do you mean by Anti-Catholic ? 

A. I mean men who would keep the Catholics in a state 
of inferiority to other citizens, who would consequently 
deprive them of the rights which other citizens enjoy; 
who would, consequently, make those other citizens masters; 
and who, comparatively speaking, would make them servants 
and slaves. 

Q. They thus placed, by their votes, men in the House 
of Commons, who, so far from being willing to further 
their interests, bound themselves solemnly, by every possible 
means, to make them servants and slaves? 

A. They did. 

Q. And did they choose again these persons for their 
representatives ? 

A. Representatives they could not be called; for they 
represented in nothing the wants or wishes, opinions 
or interests, of the large majority of their constituents; 
but these enemies they chose, not once or twice, but again 
and again, and sometimes unanimously. 

Q. They must have been dead, then, to all sense of liberty 
and self-preservation, and being so, they deserved to be 
treated as they were ? 

A. They were not dead to such a sense; but they were 
ignorant of the means of satisfying it. They did not know 
what their real interests were, or by what means they could 
best be consulted. 

Q. But if they were content with such situation, why 
raise useless and injurious desires? In what could the 


34 


peasant hope to better his position by the removal of this 
inequality; in other words, by Emancipation ? 

A. The entire point seems to reduce itself to this : ought 
the peasant to remain in his present situation ? if not, the 
sooner he feels that he ought not, the better. 

Q. You think, then, that, under such a presumption, it is 
the bounden duty of all who profess an interest for the 
well-being of the people, to rouse the people to a sense and 
knowledge of his situation ? 

A. Undoubtedly; because I think that those who would 
keep them in ignorance, act no better than the tyrants of 
other countries, who hold their subjects in darkness that 
they may oppress them the more securely. 

Q. But may not rash men excite the people on false 
grounds, and ill-designing men make use afterwards of this 
excitation for their own purposes ? 

A. Such things may happen in states where the people 
are not happy, and where there is a real cause of discontent 
somewhere; where the people are happy, and have a just 
motive for being so, it is far more difficult, even on just 
grounds, to excite them, than in other countries to keep 
them ignorant and quiet. I instance the prosperous and 
contented peasantry of the despotisms of Italy, Germany, 
and Russia. 

Q. You think, then, the irritation of a people is not 
attributable to violent speeches , &c., but to the evils under 
which they bow, and that, unless these evils existed, such 
speeches would be ineffectual ? 

A. Unquestionably. 

Q. But do these evils exist ? 

A. I think a little later I shall be fully able to prove 
that they do. 

Q. It then becomes a duty to awaken them to this 
feeling; and was it this which first induced them to vote 
in the sense of their own interest ? 


35 


A. Yes; as soon as the people began to understand the 
causes of their depression, they began naturally to desire 
a removal of these causes. Now, the first means which 
presented itself to their minds, was the peaceable and con¬ 
stitutional one of parliamentary interference ; but parlia¬ 
ment, they perceived, could never interfere in their favour, 
if parliament continued to be composed of their enemies. 
The first step, then, was to use every means which the 
constitution vested in them to form it of their friends. 

Q. But was this the opinion and wish of their landlords ? 

A. In many instances, it was not. 

Q. They then voted, in many instances, against their 
landlords? 

A. Against , I cannot say; they voted in a different 
manner from their landlords. 

_ Q. Was this right ? 

A. Right, is a loose and general expression. If taken 
in a constitutional sense, it undoubtedly was. 

Q. How so ? 

A. I argue thus. What does the elective franchise 
mean ? It means—choice; that is, that the person pos¬ 
sessing it has the right and power of choosing whom he 
likes. It is given by the constitution to the peasant, that 
the peasant might make use of it as he judges proper. 
If he use it, therefore, in order to advance his own in¬ 
terests, he does no more than the constitution intended;— 
that is, he acts constitutionally; and, acting so, acts right. 

Q. But how does he act right in reference to his landlord ? 

A. If the landlord, in return for certain indulgencies and 
considerations, exacts from him such a service as the sur¬ 
render of his franchise, or free choice, into his hand, such 
exaction is an unconstitutional and highly improper demand. 
It would be equally allowable, if once recognised, for the 
same landlord to demand from him the surrender of any 
other franchise, or the doing of any other act against the 


36 


intention and end of the constitution. If unconstitutional, 
the tenant is not only justified, but, strictly speaking, is 
bound to refuse it. 

Q. But if he has already consented to the demand ? 

A. There may be two ways of consenting; voluntary, 
and involuntary. Ignorance and force may both be so 
strong as to produce, if I may so express it, an involuntary 
consent. The Irish freeholder was in this predicament. 
He was, on one side, ignorant of his first rights; in clearer 
words, he was ignorant of the privilege and effects of his 
franchise: on the other side, rewards and menaces, held 
out by his landlord, operated like the strongest physical 
force. 

Q. His consent being involuntary, you think him entitled 
to withdraw it ? 

A. Certainly. The first moment he understands the 
nature of his rights, and can feel within him a sufficiency 
of moral courage to reject the promises and despise the 
threats of his landlord, he does right to resume the full 
exercise of those rights. 

Q. You do not, then, think the landlord has any ground 
for being offended at such conduct, much less for persecuting 
for its exercise ? 

A. Certainly not. If the landlord gave certain consi¬ 
derations for such vote, and such vote be withdrawn from 
the landlord’s controul, the landlord has a right, I conceive, 
to withhold such consideration in future. It was a price 
given, for which the equivalent is refused. So far he may 
go,—but no farther. 

Q. You think, then, that the present proves, as well 
as the past, that it is by means of political information 
chiefly, the freeholder can properly exercise his franchise ? 

A. Certainly. 

Q. Do you think the people much advanced in this 
information P 


37 


A. Y es, they have advanced; they are advancing, and 
must advance every day more and more. 

Q. You consider the Irish Catholic, then, as far as the 
exercise of the right of choosing representatives, quite as free 
as the rest of his fellow citizens P 

A. As far as the right of choosing, he certainly is. 

Q. But he is not so, as far as regards the right of being 
chosen ? 

A. It was the intention, no doubt, of our Anti-Catholic 
legislators to exclude him altogether from this right. If, in 
the result, it should be found that he is not, de facto , so ex¬ 
cluded, it will be only attributable to a remarkable omission 
in the articles of the Union. 

Q. Why are Catholics excluded from parliament by 
oaths and tests ? 

A. A temporary panic produced the enactment, lasting 
prejudices have continued them. The parliament was sus¬ 
picious of the king, and the king apprehensive of the 
parliament; between them, the Catholics were sacrificed. 

Q. But are Catholics otherwise excluded from repre¬ 
sentation and self-taxation ? 

A. Yes, in various ways. He is excluded from taxing 
himself in the house of peers, in vestries, &c. &c. 

Q. How, in the house of peers ? 

A. No Catholic peer can sit in the house. The Catholic 
peerage is not represented. 

Q. But have they not a voice in the election of Protestant 
peers ? 

A. No, they have no vote in such an election. 

Q. But, in lieu thereof, are they not allowed a vote in the 
choice of representatives for the commons house of par¬ 
liament ? 

A. No, they are not. The Irish Catholic peer is in a 
worse condition than an Irish Catholic commoner. As a 

D 


38 


peer he is prohibited from voting for a member of par¬ 
liament ; as a Catholic he can neither sit in the house 
himself, nor vote in the choice of a representative peer. 
He is almost the only individual in the empire who is in 
every sense unrepresented. 

Q. But how is the Catholic further deprived of the right 
of self-taxation ? 

A. By the Vestry Act, which prevents him from voting 
at vestries, though obliged to pay all taxes levied under said 
act, in the same proportion as the Protestants, who are 
principally benefited by their expenditure. 

Q. But how is this acted on in vestries ? 

A. A Catholic is assessed in vestries: this cess, under the 
penalty of being driven from his home, he is obliged to pay. 

Q. Is this cess heavy ? 

A. It is often heavier than any other tax, excepting 
tithes. 

Q. For what purposes is it levied ? 

A. For the exclusive support and repair of Protestant 
establishments. 

Q. Are not these establishments otherwise provided for ? 

A. They were so formerly, previous to the Reformation, 
and are so still, in many Catholic and Protestant countries. 

Q. And why not now ? 

A. Because the Irish Protestant church has applied their 
revenues to other uses. 

Q. And who are the principal contributors ? 

A. The Catholic peasants. 

Q. Do you mean to say the Catholic peasant is com¬ 
pelled to contribute to the support of buildings which ought 
otherwise to be provided for, and which can be of no service 
to him ? 

A. Yes; and so glaring sometimes is the case, that 
churches have been built in parishes where not a single 


39 


Protestant is to be found, and when built, Protestants, in 
order to colour the injustice, have been invited from neigh¬ 
bouring parishes to fill them. 

Q. But then Protestants equally contribute to the build¬ 
ing and repairing of Catholic churches ? 

A. There are many charitable Protestants, who have 
shown themselves willing and anxious to contribute indi¬ 
vidually on every occasion ; but there is no law compelling 
these contributions, as in the case of the Catholic; and we 
have at present to do with the government and legislature, 
and not with the individual. 

Q. Are the Catholics, then, obliged to pay for both, and 
are they not the poorest portion of the country, and the 
least able to pay ? 

A. Certainly ; the Catholics, for the most part, constitute 
the middle and lower orders of the country. 

Q. But do they not pay tithes also P 

A. They do—double tithes. 

Q. They thus pay the Protestant clergyman for the 
repairs of his church, and are in the next moment called on 
to pay for their own ? 

A. They are. 

Q. What is the consequence of this ? 

A. That two or three Protestants have, very frequently, 
a handsome building which they seldom visit, and half the 
Catholic population are confined to miserable hovels under 
the name of chapels, or compelled to pray, exposed to every 
inclemency of the seasons, in the open air. 

Q. But are not these contributions levied for other 
purposes ? 

A. Yes, for every purpose of divine worship. 

Q. Do you not consider this a disgrace to a rich establish¬ 
ment like the Church of Ireland ? 

A. It would be a disgrace to the poorest corporation in 
the country. 


40 


Q. Are there any means to remedy an excess, or error in 
the assessment ? 

A. None sufficiently prompt or efficient. 

Q. So here you have the great majority of the population 
of the country taxed in a very heavy manner by a small 
minority, for the exclusive use of that minority, and without 
possessing any controul to prevent the raising of such taxa¬ 
tion, or regulate its expenditure when raised ? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And do you not consider this a violation of the very 
first guarantee of the British constitution, self-taxation ? 

A. Unquestionably I do. 

Q. And that without such guarantee being observed, the 
citizen cannot truly be said to be free ? 

A. Certainly. The way to try it, would be to apply it to 
other taxes, and on a larger scale. Suppose, for instance, 
such a tax were levied by any other corporation,—persons 
forced to pay such tax, and in such a manner, could not be 
said to be truly free. 

Q. The Irish Catholic, then, as far as representation and 
self-taxation are concerned, cannot be said, truly speaking, 
to be a British freeman ? 

A. He cannot. 

Q. How stands he in reference to the second guarantee, 
or the rights of personal security ? 

A. Hitherto not much better than in the former instance. 

Q. Is he not protected by the same impartial adminis¬ 
tration of justice as the Protestant? 

A. He is not. 

Q. How so ? Are not the same forms, the same precau¬ 
tions, observed in both instances ? 

A. The same forms are observed, and the same precau¬ 
tions taken, but both are liable to perversion and abuse. 

Q. The administration of these protections are in Pro¬ 
testant hands and Catholic handsmust not the per- 


41 


version and abuse affect both Protestant and Catholic 
alike ? 

A. It is true, in preliminary and lighter cases, Catholics 
are tolerably protected, at least in the south, by the inter¬ 
vention of Catholic magistrates. In higher and more serious 
cases, he is not. The judge, the high sheriff, and some¬ 
times the jury, are exclusively Protestant. 

Q. But you do not mean to say they are therefore 
partial ? 

A. No; but it is possible, and under existing circum¬ 
stances probable, they may be often so. 

Q. And why so ? 

A. When the law of the realm makes a strong, a visible, 
and enduring distinction between two sects,—when this law 
is grounded on the alleged danger of the principles of one to 
the safety of the other,—when the legislature refuses to 
annul this law, and therefore fully sanctions the belief of 
the ground on which it reposes;—when the executive, for the 
most part, is chosen in the sense of the legislature, and acts 
generally through all its officers in that sense, I do not see 
how it is possible that the judicial functions can escape being 
affected by the same contagion. 

Q. You think, then, that Protestant judges are liable to 
act partially towards Catholics ? 

A. I do ; and that if they do not, it is owing to the 
natural probity and strong sense of the individual, and by no 
means to the constitution or the law, as it actually stands. 

Q. But is not this generally the case ? 

A. Generally so; but it has been often otherwise, and 
may be so again. The use of a constitution at all, is to fix 
and define; the rights of a citizen must not be subject to 
change or chance. The justice which can be given and 
taken away, is not justice. 

Q. You think, then, it is unjust that the judges of 
Catholics should be exclusively Protestant ? 


42 


A. Certainly; it would be unjust that the judges of 
Irishmen should be exclusively English. 

Q. But this can only apply to the higher courts, or to 
magistrates : what concern can sheriffs and juries have in the 
business ? 

A. Much. The life of the accused in all cases, and his 
property in many, depends on the verdict of a jury. It is, 
therefore, of the utmost importance to see how such jury be 
composed. 

Q. Certainly? 

A. The law recognises this principle ; and hence it is (as 
already explained) that it lays it down as an inalienable 
and primary right, that every man should be judged by his 
peers ; and, if he so wishes, by the persons best acquainted 
with him, and most capable of judging justly and impartially 
of his conduct. 

Q. Is not this the most valuable protection he can have ? 

A. Yes. But let us now see how this principle is acted 
on, in reference to the Catholics. The citizen is allowed the 
privilege of challenging, in order more fully to ensure to 
him this right. Suppose the jury so constituted, as that in 
any case the persons left behind would be equally hostile 
with those who were sent away, what would then happen ? 

Q. The challenge would be of no utility to the accused ? 

A. And then ? 

Q. The citizen could not obtain the benefits intended by 
the challenge ; that is, a jury of impartial peers ? 

A. The consequence is obvious. His life and property 
would thus be in the hands of partial, and perhaps of hostile 
judges; in other words,he would have no^guarantee for either. 

Q. But this is surely not the case in Ireland ? 

A. In all parts it is not—in some it is; but it ought not 
to be the case in any. 

Q. And why not ? 

A. On the reasons given above. A constitution which 


43 


leaves its franchises to change and chance, is no constitution. 
If it admit an arbitrary departure in one place, it may equally 
admit it in another ; if in one time, it may in another. 

Q. But how is it possible a jury should be so constituted? 

A. The jury is chosen by the high sheriff.—If the high 
sheriff thinks proper so to constitute it, he may. 

Q. Then it depends, in great measure, on the high sheriff, 
whether a Catholic is to have a hostile jury or not? 

A. It does. 

Q. But what constitutes a hostile jury ? 

A. I call a hostile jury, a jury whose opinions, feelings, 
prejudices, religious or civil, are in violent opposition to 
those of the accused. 

Q. Is this the case in the instance of Irish juries ? 

A. By no means in all. In the south, for instance, where 
the population is principally Catholic, and party feeling not 
so high, the juries are chosen by the high sheriffs with 
tolerable impartiality. In the north, the causes and conse¬ 
quences are the reverse. 

Q. And why so ? 

A. The upper portion, the gentry of the country, are, for 
the most part, Anti-Catholics and Orangemen, therefore, in 
every way hostile to the Catholics; they, therefore, choose 
juries in the same sense—Orange and Anti-Catholic, like 
themselves. 

Q. But do they not think they are acting right? They 
consider the Catholics dangerous to the constitution, and 
they are zealously attached to its support ? 

A. Perhaps so. Many act from base and party motives— 
many, I believe, from conscience and false ideas of duty. 

Q. And are they, therefore, to be censured ? 

A. Not more than a blind man who stumbles. But our 
quarrel is not with the man, but with the law, which 
makes the man blind. The law is an unjust and op¬ 
pressive law, which not only allows the possibility, but 


44 


encourages the probability of any man acting unjustly ; 
because it leaves to the individual the power of annihi¬ 
lating the very first security for life and property, if he 
should think proper. The very essence of tyranny consists 
in leaving every thing to the man, and nothing to the code. 
The essence of liberty consists in fixing clear and well-known 
boundaries, which no man, or set of men, can dare to pass, 
whatever may be their opinions and inclinations. 

Q. How is this to be remedied ? 

A. By either admitting half of the jury to be composed of 
Catholics and half of Protestants, or throwing open the 
office of the chooser, that is, of the high sheriff, to Catholic 
and Protestant alike. 

Q. But this would be only organizing more equally the 
hostile parties ? 

A. At present, it would. In this, as in other cases, 
nothing can be done for Ireland, till Ireland be reconciled to 
herself. 

Q. You think, then, that, under present circumstances, the 
Catholic is not equally protected with the Protestant, in his 
life and property ? 

A. I do. 

Q. And, therefore, not equally free with the Protestant ? 

A. No man can be considered free, who is not protected in 
the sure and tranquil enjoyment of benefits, for which all 
freedom ought to exist. Exposed, therefore, to disturbance 
and deprivation of such benefits, I cannot consider a Catho¬ 
lic, under such circumstances, in the true sense of the word, 
a British freeman. 

Q. Does the Catholic enjoy perfect eligibility to all places 
of emolument, honour, and trust, in an equal degree with 
the rest of British subjects—the third great security of civil 
liberty ? 

A. Far from it. 

Q. From what is he excluded P 


45 


A. From the entire legislative, and from a great portion 
of the executive functions. 

Q. How from the entire legislative ? 

A. From both Houses of Parliament, and from all offices 
to which members are generally eligible. 

Q. How from a great portion of the executive ? 

A. The Catholic is ineligible to the offices and dignities of 
Lord Chancellor, Chief Justices of King’s Bench and Com¬ 
mon Pleas, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and all the other 
judges of the four high courts of judicature of the realm. 
He is ineligible to various situations of very large profit and 
high honour under these several courts, such as those of the 
Attorney and Solicitor-General, Serjeants at Law, King’s 
Counsel, &c. &c. He is ineligible to many more of mere 
profit, such as those of Registrars, Masters in Chancery, &c. 
These exclusions, in a word, extend from the highest to the 
lowest branch of the profession. 

Q. Do you consider this a great privation ? 

A. The greatest. It deprives a man of the honest reward 
of his labours, and so far robs him of his property. It 
quenches in him all honourable stimulus in its pursuit, 
and so far impedes its acquisition. 

Q. This regards one of the professions; does it extend to 

others ? 

A. To almost every profession, either directly or indi¬ 
rectly. 

Q. The physician, &c., for instance? 

A. The physician is, no doubt, allowed to practise ; and, 
as a simple practitioner, as well as a barrister, he may pos¬ 
sibly acquire a large fortune. He is also eligible to the 
offices and higher distinctions of his profession; but such is 
the spirit of the givers of these honours and situations, that 
this elegibility is, for the present, almost inoperative, as in 
the College of Physicians in Ireland ; in England, he is 
totally excluded from both, in consequence of his being 
excluded from the universities. 


46 


Q. How stands he in reference to the army and navy ? 

A. By a late act, the ranks in both services are thrown 
open to Catholics. 

Q. As far, then, as both services are concerned, he enjoys 
full eligibility ? 

A. In theory he does, as in the instance of the physician ; 
but not in practice. 

Q. And why not ? 

A. Because, as long as this practice of exclusion continues 
in other departments of the state, its principle must also 
infect this. If it be just to exclude in other professions, 
it must not be less so to exclude in this. The con¬ 
cession will be virtually inoperative, until it shall be 
extended to all professions. When the principle is con¬ 
demned by such general extension, then , and not till then, 
can army and navy be said to be open to Catholics. 

Q. They are, of course, excluded from the church ? 

A. Of coerse. The entire of that very numerous and 
opulent profession, is forbidden ground to the Catholics. 

Q. But this is confined to the church itself? 

A. No; it extends to every office, great or small, de¬ 
pendent on the church—to professors, &c., in colleges—to 
judges, officers, &c., in the prerogative and other eccle¬ 
siastical courts, &c. &c. 

Q. But you cannot consider this an injustice? You 
would not have the teachers of one religion chosen from the 
• believers in another ? 

A. Certainly not; but then the teachers of one religion 
should not be paid by the believers of another. 

Q. But if that religion be the religion of the state ? 

A. We believe in the truth or falsehood of many things, 
from merely hearing it repeated that they are true or false, 
every day. Let us examine the matter on a broader basis. 
It is right a man should have some share in the contributions 
which he makes to the state. If the Catholic pays, he 
should be, at least, eligible to the places for which he pays. 


If he be not, I see no alternative, in common justice, 
but that he should not be forced to pay. 

Q. But then the church would not be supported in 
sufficient splendour ? 

A. The splendour of a Christian church:—a church 
whose kingdom is not of this world, ought to consist in 
’the dignity of virtue—the practice of good works, whose 
light may shine before all men, and not in the pomps 
and vanities of the world and the flesh, which every 
Christian is bound to renounce at his baptism, and every 
teacher of Christian doctrine to enforce, by his example 
as well as by his word. 

Q. But the church is an essential portion of the state; 
as such it ought to be maintained, by every person well 
affected to the state ? 

A. He is the truest friend and best supporter of the 
state who best consults the freedom and security, the equal 
rights and privileges, of every member of the state; he 
who takes from one-third of the empire their contributions, 
and afterwards excludes them from a fair participation 
in their distribution, is a friend to a portion only of the 
state, and not to the state itself. 

Q. But the Catholic is eligible to the dignities and 
emoluments of his own church, from which the Protestant 
is equally excluded ? 

A. He is; but the Catholic, and not the Protestant, pays 
them. 

Q. Do you think this justice ? 

A. Certainly. I do not see what the Protestant can have 
or hope from the Irish Catholic church; consequently, do 
not see why he should be called on to pay it. But by parity 
of reason, I do not see why the Catholic should pay the 
Protestant. 

Q. Then Catholics are disposed to invade the tempo- 


48 


ralities of the Established Church in favour of their own 
persuasion ? 

A. Very far from it. There are many Catholics lay 
impropriators, and in actual possession of these tempo¬ 
ralities ; there are many also, who, at this moment, enjoy 
the right of presentation to benefices. These men cannot 
be supposed inclined to attack church property, for it is 
their own property. 

Q. No; but the mass of the people are not so situated ? 

A. The Tithe Composition Act has transferred the pay¬ 
ment of the clergy from the mass of the people to the 
landed aristocracy. 

Q. But are not the Catholics anxious, generally speaking, 
to see these temporalities transferred to, or at least shared 
with the clergy of their own persuasion, for the purpose 
of aggrandizing their own church ? 

A. By no means. The Catholics, laity and clergy, are 
averse to it. The religious man sees that riches corrupt 
the religious purity of all churches; the independent man 
feels that a civil and spiritual ascendancy centered in the 
same person would be intolerable. 

Q. You consider it, then, in precisely the same light 
as the other professions ? 

A. As long as the Catholic contributes to its support, 
I think it strange he should be deprived of all its temporal 
advantages. 

Q. Are Catholics eligible to many offices of the executive ? 

A. To very few, and those the lowest. 

Q. From what is he excluded ? 

A. From the chief governorship of Ireland, from the 
cabinet, from the privy council, from all the other higli 
dignities under the crown ; from the various secretaryships, 
and sub-secretaryships of state; from all the subordinate 
offices, of any weight or credit in the administration. 


49 


Q. Does this extend to the local or provincial authorities ? 

A. Certainly. The Catholics are excluded from almost 
all. 

Q. He cannot be a governor, custcs-rotulorum ; or a high 
sheriff of a county ? 

A. No; nor even member of any city corporation. 

Q. But is he not eligible to offices and emoluments which 
may be considered a portion of the executive connected with 
trade; such as revenue commissioners, collectors, bank 
directors, &c. ? 

A. To many of these situations he is, no doubt, eligible ; 
but, being in the gift for the most part of governments hostile 
to Catholics, these situations have, in general, been bestowed 
on Protestants only. 

Q. The Catholic is thus excluded from all real share 
in the government of his own country ? 

A. Certainly, from all real share. 

Q. He has, then, little or no pow r er ? 

A. Scarcely any, as far as may be said to be de¬ 
pendent on office. 

Q. But is not this right ? His principles are inimical 
to the peace of the country and the permanence of the 
constitution; you would not entrust such a man with 
p OWe r—it would be the power of doing harm ? 

A. This has not been proved, nor does such discussion 
enter here. The only point we have now to ascertain is— 
not whether he deserve such treatment, but whether he 
be treated in this manner. 

Q. But do you think a share in the government of a 
country necessary to the enjoyment of civil liberty ? 

A. I consider it absolutely necessary ; every class should 
be at least eligible to such a share, in order to protect 
the interests of that class. 

Q. You think, then, that a class which does not enjoy 
this eligibility is virtually unprotected; and being at the 


50 


discretion of others, defrauded of his just rights in matters 
of life, person, and property P 

A. Unquestionably I do. 

Q. He cannot, then, be considered under this point of 
view no more than under any of the preceding, truly 
speaking, a British freeman ? 

A. Undoubtedly he cannot. 

Q. How far is he permitted the enjoyment and profession 
of opinion, the fourth great guarantee of British liberty ? 

A. It must appear, from all the preceding observations, 
that all the privations above mentioned are intended only 
as restrictions upon opinion. 

Q. But is he not allowed the full profession of all 
opinions, religious and civil, in common with the rest of 
British subjects ? 

A. So far as his opinions on civil matters are con¬ 
cerned, he stands, unquestionably, on the same grounds 
as other British subjects; but not so in reference to 
his opinions on religious matters. 

Q. How so ? Are not Catholics allowed the full and 
free exercise of their religion ? 

A. They are not. 

Q. I do not understand you. No law exists to prohibit 
a Catholic from freely and publicly exercising his religion ? 

A. No law at present exists to prohibit him, in positive 
terms, from entering his chapel, hearing mass, and attending 
the administration of the sacrament; but laws exist, pro¬ 
hibiting him, in indirect terms, from professing those same 
opinions, and exercising this same religion. And if the 
act or opinion be prohibited, a reasonable man will, as 
to its effects, be very indifferent while the prohibition be 
direct or indirect. 

Q. But how is the Catholic religion prohibited indi¬ 
rectly? 

A. The former penal laws acted as a direct prohibition ; 


51 


they said, “ you shall not enterthey were abrogated 
by the spirit and necessities of the age. The present penal 
laws more mildly and insidiously say, “ you may enter, but 
if you do you shall be punished for it.” This is an indirect 
prohibition. 

Q. But do the laws say that ? 

A. I simply ask, why do men come together in society ? 
why do they exert themselves? why are they industrious, 
honest, frugal, well-conducted, &c. ? It is to obtain the 
advantages of society, protection, consideration, power, &c.; 
if you take away any of these things, you undoubtedly 
punish: it is the same as if you struck with a stick a man 
confined in a prison, &c. 

Q. I admit it; but what then ? 

A. The Catholic is deprived of these advantages; he is 
therefore punished. 

Q. He is ; but it is because he is dangerous ? 

A. That remains to be considered. But, primd facie, it 
is because he is a Catholic . Were he to read his recantation, 
or cease to be a Catholic, he would not be so punished, 
whatever might be his political opinions. 

Q. But this is not punishing him for opinion ? 

A. Undoubtedly it is. What is the meaning of reading 
his recantation ? It is, simply, sacrificing his opinions. You 
cease to punish if he sacrifice them; you continue to 
punish if he retain them. This is saying, as you have not 
entered I will not punish you ; as you have entered, I 
will. 

Q. But is not this prohibition a persecution ? Is it not a 
direct infringement of the liberty of the citizen ? 

A. The most flagrant of all violations; for it is the 
father and source of all others. 

Q. How do you prove this assertion ? 

A. If it be once admitted, that it is right to punish or 
controul opinion, opinion being so doubtful an object to lay 


52 


hold of, the application of punishment must be equally 
doubtful, and, if doubtful, more or less arbitrary. To 
entrust an arbitrary application of punishment to any man, 
or any. body of men, is to make him or them (whatever 
their natural good disposition may be), by the force of 
things, tyrants; they must often punish oppressively, 
capriciously, unjustly. They who are subjected to tyrants 
and tyrannies must be, in the end, slaves. 

Q. You conclude, then, that a Roman Catholic, who is so 
subjected, cannot and is not, de facto , a freeman ? 

A. I do; and the history both of this and all other 
countries bears me out in the assumption. 

Q. A Catholic is thus in very partial enjoyment of the 
four great guarantees of British liberty. How stands he as 
to the fifth, the right of publicity ? 

A. Very nearly in the same position as in reference to the 
last. If he be punishable for opinions, it is inasmuch only 
as they are published, that he is so punishable. 

Q. But does he not stand in precisely the same position as 
his Protestant fellow-subjects? 

A. Not altogether. The Catholic labours under grievances 
which the Protestant does not: he has, therefore, a greater 
anxiety to get rid of them. To get rid of them he must 
make them known, and impress them strongly on the legis- 
lature ; to make the proper impression on the legislature , 
he must make them known to and arouse the people. This 
is to be done by publicity. ‘ A Catholic is, therefore, more 
interested at the present moment in the enjoyment of this 
great right than a Protestant. 

Q. And, consequently, more affected by its violation ? 

A. Undoubtedly. Its violation is a greater evil to the 
Catholic who suffers, than to the Protestant who enjoys. 

Q. But this violation has never been attempted ? 

A. Yes, more than once. The Convention Act was 
applied, by a singular and forced interpretation, to suppress 


53 


the right of publicity and petition; and, oil a late occasion* 
an act, expressly framed for a similar purpose, was passed 
by the Legislature. 

Q. Were these acts enforced ? 

A. The first was strictly enforced, and the Catholic 
Board was dispersed. The second was eluded ; or rather 
was so framed as to restrict, but not altogether to prevent, 
public meetings, and the Catholic Association, under another 
form, endured. 

Q. But might it not have been so amended as to prevent 
them altogether? 

A. Impossible, without being rendered applicable to 
other meetings, as well as those of the Homan Catholics. 
This, Protestants would not and ought not to have patiently 
endured. Had it, on the other side, been confined to 
Roman Catholics, the injustice and oppression would have 
been too glaring: they might as well have restored any of 
the abrogated penal laws. 

Q. The government was then in a dilemma ? 

A. Yes; the government was placed in a false position. 
There was too much liberty, and too much tyranny., in the 
administration of the laws at the same time. 

Q. How could this have been the case? 

A. On one side they wished altogether to repress and 
crush the complaints of the Catholics , and on the other they 
found they were met at every turn by the constitutional 
rights of other subjects ; so that the Catholic could not be 
injured without injuring the Protestant, nor his right in¬ 
fringed without infringing the constitution. 

Q. So that if the Catholic thus enjoyed in great part the 
privilege of publicity, he was indebted to the fears and 
jealousies of Protestants, and not to any sense of justice on 
the part of his governors ? 

A. Certainly. 

E 


54 


Q. Are not restrictions on publication, or violations of 
the right of publicity, frequent in other particulars ? 

A. Yes ; because by the English law of libel, publications 
obnoxious to government are, at any time, liable to ex officio 
prosecutions. 

Q. How does this affect the Catholics more than the Pro¬ 
testants ? 

A. The juries are more or less under the influence of the 
high sheriff; the high sheriff is at the appointment and 
under the influence of the government. The conclusion is 
natural. The prejudices of juries, at least in the north, are also, 
generally speaking, in accord with such prosecutions. 

Q. You think, then, a Catholic runs greater chance of 
conviction in such cases than a Protestant; and if so, that he is 
more restrained in the right of publicity than a Protestant ? 

A. Undoubtedly. 

Q. And consequently is not quite so free ? 

A. Certainly he is not. 

Q. Are not the restrictions on education, in some measure 
to be considered as restrictions both on opinion and on pub¬ 
licity ? 

A. Unquestionably; any particular description of edu¬ 
cation is discouraged, for no other reason but to discourage 
the principles which such a mode of education is supposed 
to inculcate. Now, if you attack the cause, you attack the 
effect. If you attack education , you attack opinion. 

Q. But this is surely not to be considered an attack ? 

A. Why not ? I have already explained why discou¬ 
ragement, under certain forms, may fully amount in its 
effects to absolute prohibition. To throw, therefore, such 
slur on one mode of education, and to give great advantages 
to another, is virtually to prohibit one of these modes, and 
to stimulate and attempt to establish the other. 

Q. But these distinctions do not surely exist between the 
Protestant and Catholic modes of education ? 


55 


A. In the reign of Anne, and of George I. and George II., 
every species of Catholic education was made highly penal. 
A Catholic father could not educate his son at home, nor 
could he send him abroad to be educated in the faith which 
he professed, without incurring the highest penalties. This 
was a direct and positive prohibition. No one will affect to 
say, that this was done with any other view than to sup¬ 
press the Catholic and to propagate the Protestant religion, 
by means the most violent, which any civilized society could 
permit. It was in the strongest sense, therefore, a violation 
of the rights of opinion. 

Q. True: but these statutes are in disuse or repealed. 
We have nothing to do with them now. How is the 
Catholic at present prohibited from the enjoyment of 
Catholic education—that is the question before us P 

A. The mode is changed, as in other cases, by the times, 
the spirit remains precisely the same. Catholic education is 
not made felony it is true, but it is made difficult, expensive, 
confined, inefficient, by both the Protestant government and 
Protestant individuals. This acts as a drawback upon 
Catholic education, and a premium upon Protestant. As in 
trade, such drawbacks act frequently to the full effect of 
direct prohibitions. 

Q. But how is Catholic education made difficult by a 
Protestant government ? 

A. The sums which government expends on education 
are almost exclusively expended on Protestant charter 
schools, Protestant colleges, Protestant seminaries, &c.; 
consequently, Catholic education, not having these advan¬ 
tages, must suffer; and, compared to Protestant, must be 
expensive, confined, and inefficient. 

Q. Is this fair? 

A. By no means. 

Q. Why do you think so ? 


56 


A. Because the Catholics pay taxes in the same pro¬ 
portion as Protestants of the same class. If part of these 
taxes are allocated to education, there is no just reason why 
they should be exclusively allocated to Protestant esta¬ 
blishments. 

Q. But are there not some exceptions ? 

A. Yes: the Royal College of Maynooth, for instance; 
but the sum allocated to its support, in reference to the 
Catholic population and taxes, is too insignificant materially 
to affect this position. 

Q. How far is this produced by Protestant individuals ? 

A. Various systems of education virtually excluding 
Catholics, because contrary to the known principles of 
Catholics, have been set on foot by Protestants. In some 
instances Catholics, because they did not allow their chil¬ 
dren to adopt them, have been persecuted and oppressed. 
This, then, is a virtual prohibition of Catholic education, 
and so far an attack on the rights of opinion. 

Q. You think, then, the Catholic is in a great measure 
deprived, or at least restricted in the enjoyment of the rights 
of publicity ; and that so far he is restricted in the rights to 
which he is entitled as a British freeman ? 

A. Yes; such is my opinion. 

Q. From what you have said, then, it appears, that in 
all the great guarantees of British liberty, he stands in 
an inferior position to every other class of British free¬ 
men ? 

A. Undoubtedly. 

Q. Having therefore a much smaller share of liberty, he 
cannot have all the advantages which are derived from it, 
such as tranquillity, consideration, prosperity, &c., which 
are the great objects of all social institutions ? 

A. Certainly not. 

Q. But is this effect general ? 


57 


A. So general, that it affects the entire country in every 
imaginable manner. 

Q. How does it affect the entire country ? 

A. Where one class enjoys this liberty and advantages 
and the other not, there cannot be any common interest 
between the two classes ; consequently, no harmony; discord 
and dissension necessarily arise between all the orders of 
the state and between the individuals of each order: the 
entire country is in a constant state of internal civil war. 

Q. But if one party be strong enough to keep the other 
in subjection, what evil consequences can result from this ?— 
one becomes habituated to command, the other to obey ? 

A. The relations of the two may alter, and one may 
become in time balanced, and perhaps superior to the other. 
Either of these results are to be dreaded. But, placing 
this aside, the actual evils, even in the above supposition, 
are to all classes very great. 

Q. What are they ? 

A. Where there rages this perpetual internal civil war, 
which may at any time burst out into a conflagration, there 
can be no permanent security for property, and the enjoy¬ 
ment of property. 

Q. Well, what then? 

A. If there be no 'security, capital will not be laid out. 
It will neither come to, nor abide in the country. 

Q. But this would affect the capitalists or monied interests 

only ? 

A. By no means; it would affect all classes—the entire 
nation. 

Q. How do you prove that ? 

A. There being little or no capital to lay out, there will 
be no manufactures, no commercial establishments, no agri¬ 
cultural improvements—all which immediately depend upon 
capital—nothing, in fine, which can employ the people,— 
and if the people are not employed, they must starve. 


58 


Q. So it is not in consequence of a surplus of population, 
but in consequence of the existing population not being em¬ 
ployed—that they are ill clothed and ill fed ? 

A. Precisely so. 

Q. And this wretchedness of Ireland is owing to the 
actual state of the Catholics ? 

A. To that chiefly, and probably to that alone. 

Q. And thus the Irishman is wretched because he is not 
free , and he is not free because he is a Catholic ? 

A. Precisely. 

Q. And why is not an Irish Catholic a British Freeman ? 

A. For reasons very different from those generally alleged : 
but we shall discuss this matter more at length in the ensuing 
Section. 




THIRD SECTION. 


WHY IS NOT AN IRISH CATHOLIC A 
BRITISH FREEMAN? 

Question. It is evident, then, that on comparing the 
franchises which constitute British freedom and those en¬ 
joyed by the Irish Catholic, that he is not truly entitled to 
the designation of a British freeman ? 

Answer. Unquestionably. 

Q. Was he always in this condition ? 

A. No. 

Q. By whom was he reduced to this condition ? 

A. By the English and Irish executive and legislature. 

Q. At what time ? 

A. At various periods. 

Q. But when first ? 

A. The Irish Catholic, distinctively as such, began to 
feel the oppression under which he actually labours, at the 
very outset of the Reformation. The first dawn of Pro¬ 
testantism in Ireland was the signal of his degradation. 

Q. But what was the cause of this ? It is not to be 
attributed to Protestantism ? 

A. By no means ; the spirit and principles of Protestant¬ 
ism would rather tend in an opposite direction. 

Q. How so ? 

A. The Protestant reformers began their religious revolu- 





60 


tion by protesting , as their name designates, against former 
abuses, and by avowing boldly a resolution to reform them. 

Q. Well, what was the result? 

A. They were, therefore, obliged to assume as principle, 
in order to justify such a protest, that every man had an 
inherent right to judge for himself. 

Q. What do you deduce from that ? 

A. That, consistently with such principle, they could not 
insist on the Irish Catholic changing his religion. If the 
Calvinist of Geneva had a right to choose his religion, so 
had the Catholic of Ireland a right to choose his. They 
were both judging for themselves. 

Q. But the Catholic is the slave of authority ? 

A. In submitting to the authority of others, the Catholic 
chooses; in choosing, he judges for himself. 

Q. You think, then, that the persecutions of Elizabeth 
were not in the spirit, or according to the principles of 
Protestantism ? 

A. According to its real Spirit they were not. 

Q. What, then, were the motives which dictated them ? 

A. The Irish were but half subdued; arbitrary and 
tyrannical governors were employed to subdue them; they 
lived on the prolongation of the war; they encouraged and 
multiplied the causes which produced it; they prospered on 
feuds, dissensions, insurrections. From all this sprung 
confiscations of large tracts of land, honours, dignity, place, 
and power. 

Q. But this was a motive for attacking the Irish indis¬ 
criminately ? 

A. Yes; and the attack had for a long time been con¬ 
ducted indiscriminately. 

Q. Then how came it to be directed chiefly against the 
Catholics? * 

A. For many centuries the struggle had been between the 
invaded and the invaders; the natives and the new settlers: 


61 


as the settlers came they blended with the inhabitants, and 
were soon succeeded by other settlers like themselves. These 
settlers, at the time of Elizabeth, were Protestants; they 
were opposed in every thing to the natives; the natives con¬ 
tinued Catholics. Thus the war between the invaded and 
the invaders (the natives and the new settlers) became a war 
between Catholics and Protestants. 

Q. There was nothing, then, in the tenets or opinions of 
the Protestants and Catholics to produce this ? 

A. No : had the Irish become Protestants, or the English 
continued Catholics, the result would have been precisely 
the same; such was the case before these distinctions 
existed ; such was the case, in some instances, after . 

Q. Protestantism, then, was the pretext only in the time 
of Elizabeth ? 

A. The pretext, and nothing else. The real cause was 
an inordinate love of plunder and superiority ; the unbridled 
lust of wealth and power. 

• V f « 

Q. What were the means ? 

A. One of the first, was, the adoption of the oath of 
supremacy; another, the adoption of the English liturgy. 

Q. Had not the Sovereign, grounds for demanding the 
adoption of the oath of supremacy ? 

A. What grounds P 

Q. The Act of Supremacy is the rejection of the authority 
of the pope. Has not every sovereign an exclusive right to 
the allegiance of his subjects ? 

A. In civil matters certainly; not in spiritual. 

Q. And why not ? 

A. Because this allegiance is paid, not so much to the 
person of the sovereign as to the state represented in his 
person. The state ought to have nothing to do with a man’s 
religion or conscience, provided he exactly fulfils the civil 
duties imposed upon him by the state. 

Q. But had not Elizabeth reason to suppose that these 


duties were materially interfered with by the pope, on this 
spiritual head ? 

A. Yes, Pius V. excommunicated and absolved her sub¬ 
jects from their allegiance; but a strong army and an invin¬ 
cible fleet was a better answer to such absurd pretensions 
on the part of the holy see, than the persecution of two or 
three priests. 

Q. You do not think, then, in requiring this oath she had 
right or expediency on her side ? 

A. No: oaths are easily given, when force compels them ; 
when that force is removed, they are as easily broken. 

Q. How did she enforce the adoption of the liturgy ? 

A. By the strongest coercive measures—fines, torture, 
confiscations. 

Q. What was it ? 

A. A mere translation from the mass, as any person may 
perceive, on comparing both liturgies. 

Q. But, it was at least understood , the priests could no 
longer keep the people in darkness P 

A. Yes, by Englishmen, but they formed about one- 
hundredth part of the nation; the natives and the old 
settlers understood nothing but Irish. 

Q. As they could not understand this English liturgy, 
what did Elizabeth do ? she had it of course translated into 
Irish ? 

A. She had it translated into latin. 

Q. But it was in latin before ? 

A. Yes; but it was then called the mass. 

Q. And was not that a good reason for the alteration ; the 
queen did not believe in the real presence ? 

A. The queen believed in the real presence, and had a 
chapel with lighted tapers and crucifixes, &c., at Westminster. 

Q. But were the Catholics persecuted because they pre¬ 
ferred the priests ’ latin to the queen's latin, for after all it 
comes to that ? 


63 


A. Yes; cruelly. These differences were made the pre¬ 
text , the cause I have told you was quite distinct. 

Q. But were not the new settlers assisted by other 
spoilers ? 

A. Yes; the extinction of the Catholic religion in 
England, had thrown a great number of abbeys, churches, &c., 
into the hands of the crow n : this was a great inducement 
to attempt a similar experiment in Ireland. 

Q. It was, therefore, necessary to dispossess the actual 
incumbents P 

A. Certainly. They were in possession of vast riches. 

Q. How was this done ? 

A. I?y commanding them to conform to the above con¬ 
ditions on pain of expulsion. 

Q. This accounts both for the exaction of such con¬ 
ditions, and the persecution which followed it ? 

A. Fully. 

Q. Did it succeed ? 

A. In many instances it did. The reformers, in several 
places, got possession of the revenues of the Catholic priests 
and bishops, and set up Protestant priests and bishops in 
their place. Elizabeth acted in Ireland the part of Henry in 
England. 

Q. Did this benefit religion ? 

A. Far from it. Even from the avowal of Elizabeth's 
governor, Sir H. Sidney, there never was a more ignorant 
or licentious church, than the Protestant church of Ireland, 
during her reign. 

Q. It was not, therefore, to secure the state , or to benefit 
the cause of religion , that the first penal and excluding laws 
against the Catholics were enacted ? 

A. No. 

Q. Did these penal laws continue, and increase ? 

A. Yes. The causes continuing, the effects continued, 
and increased with them. 


64 


Q. How was it under Elizabeth’s successor ? 

A. Mary succeeded to Elizabeth. She restored the 
Catholic religion in England. Ireland followed its example. 
The persecution of the Catholics for an instant ceased. 

Q. The Catholics, then, came once more into power ? 

A. They returned to the position which they had held 
before the Reformation. 

Q. But did they not show their spirit of intolerance and 
persecution on this revolution P They did so in England ? 

A. In England, political parties were more equally 
balanced; the contest, therefore, of which religion was the 
pretext, was more vindictive. In Ireland, the vast majority 
were still Catholics. The same reason did not hold. 

Q. But did they not retaliate from a spirit, not of fear or 
ambition, but of revenge ? 

A. No; but quite the contrary. There was no re-action 
in Ireland; no man was punished for the part he took in 
the late religious revolution. The very Protestants who 
fled from the fire and faggots of Mary, found protection and 
assistance among 1 the Catholics of Ireland. 

Q. But does not the conduct of Mary prove the religion 
of Catholics to have been a religion of persecution ? 

A. No; it proves only that human nature and human 
passion will, at all times, and under any religion, pursue its 
purposes. Religion, Liberty, Social Order, have successively 
been assumed in various stages of society, as cloaks for every 
crime. 

Q. The Catholics, then, of Ireland, are not justly charge¬ 
able, on account of tlieir religious tenets, with the spirit of 
persecution ? 

A. They were not justly chargeable then , neither are they 
now. Whatever other Catholics might have been, the Irish 
Catholics were not persecutors. Whatever they might have 
been then , they are not so now. 


65 


Q. But would this charge (had it been true) have been a 
just ground for exclusion ? 

A. No. Exclusion is persecution, and persecution cannot 
be justified by persecution. Besides, if the Catholics are so 
to be persecuted, for the errors and crimes of their ancestors, 
or their communion in other parts of the world, no other 
sect has a right to be exempted from persecution. 

Q. Do you mean to say that Protestantism persecuted like 
Catholicism ? 

A. This is a confusion of terms. I say Protestants per¬ 
secuted like Catholics , and not with half so good an excuse. 
The Catholic who persecuted, alleged that his religion was 
infallible—that there could not be two infallible religions— 
that all others were therefore false—that the first act of 
charity was to save the immortal soul—that this ought to be 
done at the expense of the mortal body—consequently, he 
thought himself justified, reasoning strictly from these 
erroneous premises, in employing the secular in aid of the 
spiritual arm, to bring about this desirable event. This 
was not the case with the Protestant. 

Q. And why not ? 

A. The Protestant, at least at the outset, as shown above, 
set up as the first principle of his creed the right of every 
man to judge for himself—in other words, the right of 
private judgment.. If every man has a right to judge for 
himself, why should any other man punish him for what he 
has a right to P 

Q. But his religion may be false? 

A. It may, or it may not. The Protestant does not, and 
cannot consistently with his creed decide this question. How 
then can he be entitled to punish for what he cannot decide 

himself. 

Q. But he might wish to bring him over to what he con¬ 
siders a purer form of faith ? 

, A. Of what use would it be ? The Protestant admits he 


66 


can be saved in that faith ; what more can he hope to do for 
him ? Besides, were his opinion on this point valid, and a jus¬ 
tifying cause for persecution, might not the Dissenter turn 
round on the Protestant, and say, mine is a purer Chris¬ 
tianity than yours, as yours is purer than the Catholic’s. 
You persecuted the Catholic to convert him to your faith— 
I will now persecute you, precisely for the same cause, to 
convert you to mine. 

Q. But the Protestants did not persecute in this manner? 

A. They unquestionably did : Calvin burnt Servetus; 
this is the type of many others. Persecution was the dis¬ 
grace of almost every sect which sprang up at the Reforma¬ 
tion ; they often took the place of Catholics to imitate only 
their crimes. 

Q. But these were individuals; they should not be con¬ 
founded with the religion ? 

A. Certainly not. But the religion was more or less 
infected by the passions of the individual. The Church of 
England became a persecuting church, because its professors 
were at first persecutors. 

Q. You do not mean to say that it sanctioned the prin¬ 
ciples of persecution ? 

A. I do. In precise and formal terms, the Protestant, 
the Reformed Church of England, sanctioned the principle 
of persecution, and acted on that sanction. 

Q. How so ? 

A. It drew up Thirty-nine Articles of Faith, embracing 
precise and positive opinions on some of the most difficult 
and doubtful points of Christian doctrine. It directed, by 
an Act, called the Act of Uniformity, that every man should 
subscribe to these articles, thus attesting a special and not 
average belief in them, and punished every man who 
refused such subscription with imprisonment, fire, and even 
death. 

Q. But he had at least the protection of British law; the 


67 

Catholic subjected the accused to the arbitrary judgments 
of the Inquisition ? 

A. The Protestant Church of England established a 
court in open defiance of the British constitution, called the 
Court of High Commission. This court was established on 
the same detestable principle, and infected by the same vices 
as the Spanish Inquisition. 

Q. But this court was soon abrogated? 

A. Yes; by popular interference. But what would you 
think, if this were made an article of accusation against 

O 

the French Protestants of the present day, by the Catholic 
Liberals of the modern Chamber of Deputies ? 

Q. But this was the result of the despotic spirit of 
Elizabeth ? 

A. Perhaps so ; but the same may be said of all other 
persecution—it reigned most where despotism accompanied 
it. It cannot co-exist with real liberty. 

Q. Did this persecution continue ? 

A. Yes, under James, and precisely for the same reasons. 

Q. But had not the Catholics now become rebels f 

A. The Irish had been driven into resistance: the Irish 
happened to be Catholics. 

Q. But why were they driven into resistance? 

A. In order that resisting they might be oppressed, 
and being oppressed, their lands might be confiscated. 

Q. And were such the consequences ? 

A. Yes; the whole of the territories of O’Neil, and 
his fellow-chiefs, to the amount of one million and more 
of acres, were seized and kept. 

Q. How were they driven into resistance. Was not 
the Catholic religion the chief cause of their disaffection ? 

A. No; but the tyranny of their rulers. Injury pro¬ 
duces self-defence. 

Q. What was the result of these injuries ? 


68 


A. A new colony was planted in Ulster, consisting 
entirely of English strangers. 

Q. Were they hostile to the natives? 

A. Naturally: they took possession of their lands by 
force . They must have supposed the natives anxious to 
recover them by force . This produced a series of internal 
civil contentions—force repelled by force. 

Q. What was their religion ? 

A. Protestant and Presbyterian. 

Q. Thus the Protestants were again opposed to the 
Catholics ? 

A. Yes; it was natural, therefore, they should designate 
every thing hostile by the name of Catholic—every thing 
favourable and friendly by the name of Protestant. 

Q. But did they not consider the Catholics disloyal, 
and the Protestants loyal ? 

A. Yes. They called by the name of loyalty, attach¬ 
ment to the king’s government. It was the king’s govern¬ 
ment who gave them their lands. They were, of course, 
attached to the giver. Those who were despoiled of them, 
were presumed to be hostile to the spoiler—this hostility 
was called disloyalty. 

Q. But did this hostility continue ? 

A. Yes; as the causes continued, so did the effects 
also continue. 

Q. Did they make any attempt to recover their lands? 

A. Several; but generally failed. Had they been suc¬ 
cessful, it would have been called revolution; as it was, 
it was called rebellion. 

Q. But had they not sometimes recourse to the most 
treacherous proceedings. Does not the massacre of 1641 
stamp the Catholics with infamy ? 

A. That insurrection has been much misrepresented. 
It can scarcely be called a conspiracy ; it certainly was not 


69 


a massacre. It was produced by the most unheard-of 
cruelties on the part of the Protestant and stranger; it 
was surpassed in atrocities by the same party; and the 
number who perished was far less than is supposed. The 
Catholics of the south had no share in it whatsoever. 

Q. You do not think, then, that it was a Catholic 
insurrection ? 

A. No; I should simply call it an Irish insurrection, 
or an insurrection of the former proprietors against the 
actual proprietors. 

Q. But was not the Catholic religion , the cause of the 
insurrection ? 

A. No, but human nature , which, whether Catholic, 
Protestant, Christian, or Pagan, if treated thus, will, sooner 
or later, retaliate in a similar manner. 

Q. You think, then, that it was unjust to tax Catholics, 
or rather the Catholic religion, with these crimes ? 

A. Undoubtedly. The Catholic religion, as I have already 
said, was not the cause. 

• Q. But was not this insurrection a part only of a system; 
was it not followed up by a general revolt, under the 
name of the Confederacy of Kilkenny, against the king, 
Charles I. ? 

A. Quite the reverse. The Catholics did not revolt 
against Charles I. ; but they revolted against the tyranny 
of the Irish government, then creatures of the parliament 
faction, in favour of, and for the defence of Charles I. 

Q. Was this revolt voluntary ? 

A. No. They were forced to it by every excess, by 
arbitrary taxes, seizure of person, confiscation of land, 
personal insult, national degradation. Nothing which could 
justify a people in taking up arms, was omitted. 

Q. You think, then, that the Irish had still greater 
motives for revolt against , the tyrannies of their viceroys, 
than the English against the tyranny of their kings. 

F 


70 


A. Infinitely greater. The infringements of the Great 
Charter which produced the Civil war; and, finally, the 
death of Charles, are not to be put in comparison with 
the cruelties and oppression of Parsons and Borlase. 

Q. You do not think, then, that this revolt is to be 
attributed to the principles of the Catholic religion ? 

A. No, certainly. It would be just as reasonable to 
say, that Hampden and the Parliament revolted, simply 
because the principles of the Presbyterian religion so 
taught them; and that Charles w^as put to death for no 
other reason but because he w r as not a Presbyterian, but a 
Protestant. It would be a strange rule of justice to exclude, 
in future, on such presumed principles, all Presbyterians 
from a share in the government of their own state. 

Q. But I think you said, that this revolt w as not against 
the king, but against the king's governors ? 

A. Yes. The Confederates warred, as it appears from 
their own declaration and seal:—“ For God, their King, 

AND THEIR COMMON COUNTRY-IRELAND."” The governors 

were in the pay of the parliament, and enemies to the king. 

Q. This, then, so far from being a rebellion, was an 
act of allegiance, the taking up arms against a faction ? 

A. Precisely; they never deserted Charles, though he 
frequently deserted them. 

Q. How did he desert them ? 

A. By promising solemnly to grant their fair demands, 
under the name of the “ Graces and afterwards by 
openly violating these solemn promises. 

Q. They w r ould, then, have been quite as justified as 
the English were, in rising up against him ; he violated 
his solemn pact with his people, in their case, as w r ell as 
in the case of the English ? 

A. Yes. They preferred, however, remaining faithful to 
their allegiance; besides, they hated the parliamentarians, 
for they had been persecuted by them. 


71 


Q. It is not just, then, to charge Catholics with disloyalty, 
and facility in violating their oaths ? 

A. Quite the reverse. They were in a great measure 
reduced to the state in which they were, by observing 
them too punctiliously. 

Q. How so P 

A. Charles was beheaded ; Cromwell arrived in Ireland; 
he placed himself at the head of the Presbyterian party. The 
Presbyterians were long opposed to every thing Catholic and 
Royal. They were successful. The Catholics were driven 
before them into Connaught. The rest of Ireland, won 
by violence, rebellion, and oppression, w r as delivered up 
in mass to his followers. 

Q. That is, to tyrants and rebels ? 

A. Precisely. The Republican party deserved that 
character, in Ireland. 

Q. The Catholics then suffered for their loyalty , and not 
for their disaffection ? 

A. Precisely. Had they joined the parliamentarians 
against the royalists, they wrnuld have suffered nothing. 

Q. Their religion , therefore, had nothing to do with it ? 

A. If any thing, their religion attached them more 
strongly to the throne. 

Q. On the Restoration, however, they w r ere fully re¬ 
warded for all this attachment ? 

A. At the Restoration very few of the ancient proprietors, 
or Royalists, were restored; the Cromwellian rebels remained 
in possession of the country. 

Q. Was not this an act of ingratitude on the part of the king? 

A. Yes. They had remained faithful to the royal cause, 
even unto the end; their fidelity was made a ground for 
new oppressions. 

Q. What right, then, had the Protestants of that day 
to apply to the Catholics the charge of disaffection and 
disloyalty f 


72 


A. None whatever. They might have charged them 
with over-loyalty, absurd loyalty ; but, by disloyalty, the 
Cromwellian meant disloyalty to his cause; by disaffection, 
the Protestant meant dislike to his usurpations and Ms 
oppressions. 

Q. But did these charges endure ? 

A. Certainly. It was for the interest of that party, both 
in Ireland and out of Ireland, to maintain them. If the 
ancient proprietors could be proved to be disloyal and 
disaffected, it followed, of course, that it would be highly 
dangerous to re-admit them to the enjoyment of the terri¬ 
torial influence of the country—that is, to their lands. 

Q. But were they not also deprived of their political 
privileges, and how so ? 

A. Yes; and on precisely the same grounds. If it 
were dangerous to give them back their lands, it followed 
that it would not be less dangerous to give them back 
the means of re-acquiring them. Now, places in Parlia¬ 
ment—in the executive, in the municipal government of 
the country, were all means of this description—they were, 
therefore, deprived equally of them. 

Q. It was not, then, in consequence of any thing in 
the Catholic religion which could incapacitate them for 
these places and privileges, that they were so deprived ? 

A. No ; certainly. Had that been the case, all England 
and Ireland would have been equally incapacitated long since. 

Q. It seems to me, then, that, down to the reign of 
Charles II., the Catholics of Ireland were persecuted in con¬ 
sequence only of their having had a large portion of the lands 
of the state, which the Protestants desired to obtain —which 
the Protestants did obtain—and which they were afraid 
afterwards to lose ? 

A. This is the exact state of the question. Taken in 
its simplest expression, the struggle was not a religious 
struggle, but a struggle between meum and tuum, a combat 


73 


for the land; and in order to keep the land , for the 
power of tlie state, which gives and keeps it. 

Q. Was this state of things of long duration ? 

A. It might easily have been terminated, with a little fair 
dealing and decision on the part of the sovereign; but he 
wanted both, and it of course continued. 

Q. E xplain yourself a little further ? 

A. Charles was a faithless and profligate prince. He had 
in view nothing but his own personal interests and pleasure; 
he sometimes favoured one party and sometimes the other; 
his purposes were temporary and short-sighted, so were his 
measures. 

Q. What was the result of this P 

A. He sometimes protected and sometimes oppressed the 
Catholics. 

Q. But was there not an outcry raised against him in 
England, on the grounds of his being favourable to 
Catholicism ? 

A. Yes, by the same party, and for the same purposes, I 
have just mentioned. To screen himself, he had the base¬ 
ness to oppress the Catholics. His father acted in a similar 
manner towards Strafford. 

Q. What was the result of these oppressions ? 

A. The same division split the entire of the state. There 
was nothing steady, nothing sincere, nothing contented. 
Every class was in a state of smothered faction at his death. 

Q. How do you mean of faction ? 

A. I mean, that they looked on each other with an inex¬ 
orable antipathy, ready to take up arms whenever the 
opportunity might offer. 

Q. But how was this to be avoided ? might it not have 
been dangerous to have given either an ascendancy ? 

A. This is precisely what ought to have been avoided; but 
it could only have been avoided by ecpualjustice to all. Charles 
was weak or wicked enough to give ascendancy to each in tut n. 


74 


Q. Did his successor, James II., endeavour to correct 
this state of discord and confusion ? 

A. James saw that the Catholics were reduced below their 
proper level in the state ; he attempted to raise them to an 
equality with other subjects. 

Q. But was not this well ? 

A. Certainly; but James was by character a despot, by 
religion a Catholic. He had the highest opinion of his own 
power, judgment, and principles: whatever they were, civil or 
religious, through right and wrong, he tried to enforce them. 

Q. Then he tried to force Catholicism as well as despo¬ 
tism upon his subjects ? 

A. Yes, for the reasons given. He did not tyrannize 
over his subjects because he was a Catholic; but he tried to 
force Catholicism on his subjects because he was a tyrant. 

Q. But did he act so in England ? 

A. To a certain degree he did, though by no means to the 
extent asserted. It must always be remembered, that the 
same party, which had raised the outcry against his brother, still 
existed, and were ready to raise the same outcry against him. 

Q. What was this party ? 

A. It was formed principally of the old opponents to the 
royal cause, the relics of the republican party, joined with 
occasional recruits from the high church. 

Q. But were not these men real and honest supporters 
of liberty ? 

A. Many of them undoubtedly were; and it was their 
opposition on one side, and James’s support on the other, 
which caused Catholicism to be identified in the mind of the 
nation with slavery and tyranny. 

Q. Then the Catholics were considered not only disloyal 
and disaffected to Protestant kings and institutions, but also 
abettors of tyranny and slavery P 

A. Yes; and it was this additional calumny which was 
instrumental in degrading and oppressing them still further. 


75 


Q. Bat can you blame a nation, ardent lovers of liberty, 
in thus treating those whom they believed to be its foes ? 

A. I conceive tlfe very essence of liberty to be the equality 
of all citizens before the law . In defending, therefore, liberty 
by tyrannizing over their fellow subjects, they clearly proved, 
they knew not what liberty was . The liberty, which con¬ 
sists in the freedom of one class and the slavery of another, 
is the liberty not of the country , but of that class alone. In 
such a sense, the republic of Venice may be said to have been 
as free as the republic of America. 

Q. But does not this mistake account for their conduct ? 

A. I think it does. But they made two mistakes. Both 
should be taken into account: the first, which I have just 
mentioned; the second, the confounding unnecessarily the 
cause of Catholicism with the cause of James. 

Q. But did not the Catholics support him in Ireland? 
and was not this, then, the supporting of tyranny ? 

A. They did assist James, and he was a tyrant it is true; 
but to the Catholics of Ireland he was a deliverer from 
unjust oppression. Infighting for him, they were fighting 
for their liberties. The Cromwellian party, since their 
establishment in Ireland, had uniformly oppressed them. 
They still continued to do so. James relieved them, at least 
in part, from this oppression; they identified his cause with 
their total delivery. 

Q. They cannot, therefore, be considered as acting 
slavishly ? 

A. Certainly not; their whole conduct proves the re¬ 
verse. They contended, as I have said, for their liberties. 

Q. How does this appear ? 

A. On the arrival of James in Dublin, the Catholics 
became, by the secession of their opponents, the predomi¬ 
nant power: they made use of this momentary ascendancy 
for the benefit of freedom and of the country. The first 
acts they passed were acts of free trade, acts reversing the Law 


76 


of Poynings, acts establishing the national independence ; all 
indeed suggested by the confederates of Kilkenny (Catholics 
also), but reversed the moment the Protestant party came 
into power. It was only after a long struggle that they were 
again established, in 1782; but again given up by the Pro¬ 
testants at the Union. 

Q. You think, then, that these were acts highly advan¬ 
tageous to Irish liberty ? 

A. Certainly : the period in which they were last passed is 
the brightest epoch in Irish history. 

Q. Did they not also enact, that each religion should pay 
its respective pastors ? 

A. Yes, they did. 

Q. Do you think such principle just? 

A. Abstractedly I do ; it ought to be the principle of 
every state, for it is the principle of common sense and 
natural justice. 

Q. But did they not attempt to reverse the Act of Settlement? 

A. Yes, and this was the chief cause of the clamour 
against them. 

Q. And was not such attempt most unjust? 

A. It was most unwise; the safety of a state should not 
be risked for private advantage ; yet it was also very natural. 
The Protestants thought it just to seize those lands; the 
Catholics thought it just to reseize them. 

Q. So you acquit the Catholics of being opposed to the 
principles of liberty in opposing William, and the principles 
of the Revolution of 1 688 ? 

A. This is an ordinary mistake. The Catholics opposed 
William because they did not consider him their lawful 
king : the Revolution of 1688 was not their revolution ; but 
though opposed to its achievers, they were in no wise 
opposed to its principles. 

Q. But was not William their lawful king ? 

A. No ; he was elected king of England on two grounds : 


77 


first, because James was said to have abdicated; in other 
words, because he Jied: secondly, because such was the will 
and wish of a large and influential part of the English 
aristocracy, expressed through their legitimate organ—the 
English Parliament. 

Q. But did not the same grounds exist in Ireland ? 

A. No; James did not fly from Ireland, but he fled to 
Ireland. The great portion of the Irish nation were Catho¬ 
lics ; they declared, through their legitimate organ, the Irish 
Parliament, their adhesion to James. 

Q. Then William, and not James, was the usurper ? 

A. William was the invader, and, had he not been the 
conqueror, he would have been considered the aggressor. 

Q. And his adherents, therefore, rebels ? 

A. As far as Ireland was in question they were. 

Q. But how was the Revolution of 16*88 opposed ? 

A. The Catholics could not be satisfied 'with their degra- 

o 

dation ; the Irish ought not to have been satisfied with the 
degradation of Ireland. 

Q. But how was the Catholic degraded ? 

A. The laws which held him in bondage, and which 
James would have reversed, were allowed to remain, and 
were confirmed. 

Q. How was Ireland degraded ? 

A. By making her again dependant on England ; restrict¬ 
ing her woollen and other trades ; and, virtually, reducing 
her once more to a miserable colony. This was done by 
William. 

Q. Why is William, then, considered a deliverer f 

A. Because he delivered the Presbyterian and Protestant 
party of the north of Ireland—in other words, the Crom- 
wellians—from the apprehension of losing their estates, or 
beino- obliged to surrender them back to the Catholics. Had 
James succeeded, the reversal of the Act of Settlement 
might have been made good. 


78 


Q. It was, then, neither a matter of religion or liberty, 
but a matter of pounds and acres ? 

A. Precisely; but religion and liberty were made sub¬ 
servient: liberty was now introduced under William, as 
religion was formerly introduced under Elizabeth. Both 
were pleas and pretexts. 

Q. So, when the Irish Protestants speak of the Revolution 
of 1688, they still mean the Act of Settlement ? 

A. In general. 

Q. But now that this act is for ever established, why do 
they continue their outcry against Catholics, and invoke 
William as a justifying example ? 

A. We shall soon see that, though their estates are no 
longer so, they think their places and pensions are still 
endangered by the Catholics : as they feared once for their 
lands , they now fear for their power; as William rescued 
them from the former fear, they now look for another 
William to rescue them from the present. The possessor 
never considers the rights of a claimant; the more just his 
claim, the more he is feared or hated by the possessor. 

Q. But why invoke William ? was he an oppressor and a 
persecutor ? 

A. Quite the contrary: William was enlightened and 
tolerant, his followers were blind and tyrannical; the faction 
was the persecutor, not the sovereign. 

Q. He did not, then, detest or oppress the Catholics ? 

A. No; but attempted to raise them, in despite of his 
party and ministers, to something like a level with his other 
subjects. 

Q. But why should his party oppose him ? 

A. In order to follow their old policy,—oppress the 
Catholic, excite him to rebellion, crush him, confiscate his 
property, seize his person, endanger his life, and then call 
it the cause of justice, conscience, liberty, religion, equal 
right; this was their Decalogue and Constitution. 


Q. But did they act so ? 

A. Certainly : the cruelties of the north beginning in the 
cause just described, ended by the confiscations of the north. 
The followers of William received one million and a half of 
acres, the property of the Catholics. 

Q. It is not, then, astonishing they should adhere to such 
a cause ? 

A. Not in the least: the freebooter lauds the justice and 
liberality of his captain. 

Q. But in the south, where the Catholics were the 
stronger, did not William there exert his natural clemency? 

A. Yes, at the siege of Limerick: the city was surren¬ 
dered by capitulation, not taken by storm ; it contained the 
flower and force of the Catholics. He guaranteed them 
their properties, their rights, and their honours, by a solemn 
national treaty. 

Q. But did this treaty extend to all the Catholics of 
Ireland ? 

A. Yes ; it would be a gross anomaly to place one-half of 
that body in the enjoyment of greater privileges than an¬ 
other : the first words of the treaty confirm it. 

Q. But it guaranteed them only in the enjoyment of their 
properties, and the exercise of their religion ? 

A. Not only of their religion, but of their civil rights ; at 
least, of all such, as they enjoyed under Charles II. Besides, 
as has already been shown, the exercise of religion, to be 
really free, must be exempt from pains and penalties. It 
was expressly agreed they should take no oath, but the oath 
of allegiance. 

Q. Was this treaty observed ? 

A. No! it was violated in many of its articles by the 
English, and Irish Protestants. 

Q. And how so? 

A. The Parliament refused to ratify the conditions. 

Q. But had not William guaranteed their ratifications ? 


80 


A. He had solemnly. Had not this guarantee been 
given, the Catholics would never have surrendered Limerick. 

Q. Then William deceived them ? 

A. He either deceived them, or was deceived himself. 

Q. Did the Protestants assent to this violation ? 

A. They did. The very Sunday after, a sermon was 
preached in Christ Church, Dublin, approving of the vio¬ 
lation of the public faith with the Catholics. 

Q. Did the Catholics act in the same manner? 

A. The contrary. Though the French forces were in 
sight the very day after the signature of the treaty, and there 
was every hope and probability of their making a successful 
defence, yet they adhered to its provisions with unchangeable 
fidelity. 

Q. The imputation, then, that the Catholics do not keep 
faith with heretics, is, in this instance, more applicable to 
Protestants, than Catholics ? 

A. It should not be imputed to either, or to both. It is 
mere worldly corrupt state-expediency, which assumes as the 
occasion offers, the garb of Catholicity or Protestantism, and 
has been confounded by posterity with either. 

Q. What was the nature of those laws which were passed 
in violation of the Treaty of Limerick ? 

A. They deprived the Catholics of the means of educa¬ 
tion—they prevented them from sitting in either House of 
Parliament, unless they consented to take many other oaths 
besides the oaths of allegiance—they rendered them incapable 
of taking land, &c., except under the severest restrictions. 

Q. Why, then, was this system persevered in ? 

A. In order that not only the lands, but the taxes and 
contributions—in other words, the places and honours of the 
state—might be also vested in the Protestants. 

Q. They seized, therefore, the plea of converting the 
Catholics, in order to exclude them from the enjoyment of 
these emoluments and privileges ? 


81 


A. You are right. When, at a later period, several 
recanted, in order to enjoy the practice and emoluments of 
the bar, it was a favourite subject of complaint, that the 
profession was overstocked with recusant Papists. 

Q. Did these oppressions endure under the succeeding 
monarchs ? 

A. Yes; and not only endured, but grievously increased. 

Q. What was the nature of the enactments against the 
Catholics under Anne ? 

A. They were of every degree of atrocity. They attacked 
the Catholic in every particular of his life and property. 

Q. But were they not further persecuted ? 

A. Yes; particularly in their clergy. It was highly penal 
for a Catholic priest or bishop to appear in the country, or ' 
to exercise his functions, except under the most galling 
restrictions. It was death for him to marry Catholics and 
Protestants. 

Q. Was the Catholic further affected ? 

A. Yes; when the Catholic had been sufficiently degraded 
by the operation of these laws, he was precluded from 
aspiring to his liberation, by the prohibition of education. 

Q. Were not these laws, however, much mitigated, and 
consistent, on the whole, with the safe and proper govern¬ 
ment of the state P 

A. Mitigated they were, but enforced also, very frequently, 
with every circumstance of cruelty and oppression, by private 
jealousy and hostility. They were, to the greatest degree, 
immoral, unjust, unconstitutional, and impolitic. 

Q. How, immoral ? 

A. They violated all the primary and fundamental duties 
of social and domestic life. They set citizen against citizen, 
servant against master, wife against husband, father against 
son. Such laws were violations of the natural law, and the 
law of the Gospel at the same time. 

Q. How, unjust? 


82 


A. The Catholics continued to be double taxed, double 
tithed—they served in the army, in the navy—they con¬ 
tributed to the commercial and agricultural industry and 
wealth of the country—they had a right, then, to the results. 
It was injustice to deprive them of them. 

Q. How, unconstitutional ? 

A. If the constitution be a system of general liberty, it 
stands to reason that it could not exclude seven-eighths of 
the community for whom it was designed. Now, this was 
the case in Ireland. The exclusion was an infraction of, 
and not a portion of the constitution. 

Q. But we speak of the constitution of 1688 ? 

A. That was an English constitution, and adapted to 
English wishes and wants. The wants and wishes of Ireland 
were different—her constitution was therefore different. Her 
constitution, if we mean that which gave her the greatest 
rights, was the Irish constitution of 1782. 

Q. But were not the Catholics excluded by the consti¬ 
tution of 1688 ? 

A. To a slight degree they were; but by far the greater 
number of these penal laws were subsequently enacted. 

Q. To say, therefore, that it is necessary to enforce or 
continue these penal laws, in order to support the constitu¬ 
tion of 1688, or any free constitution, is, on the face of it, 
an absurdity ? 

A. A freedom which requires the oppression of seven- 
eighths of a state, (I speak of Ireland), for the liberty of one- 
eighth, is, I again repeat it, a slavery. It would be as reason¬ 
able to call Turkey a free country, because the Sultan is free. 
The penal laws, which they would support, did not exist in 
1688. The constitution of 1688 began, continued, and 
was supported without them. 

Q. How was it impolitic ? 

A. Persecution, however limited, is always impolicy. 
Where it is directed by the few against the many, it is 


83 


folly and impolicy. In Ireland, it was both. We shall see 
its consequences later. 

Q. Did this immoral, unjust, unconstitutional, and impo¬ 
litic code continue much lono-er ? 

A. Y es; and was aggravated under every succeeding 
monarch ? 

Q. How, aggravated ? what occurred under George I. 
and George II. ? 

A. The Catholic was deprived of his last remaining pri¬ 
vilege, the elective franchise; and this, of all the laws, was 
the most unjust, the most unconstitutional and impolitic ? 

Q. How, unjust? 

A. No tax which is levied in a free state, ought to be 
levied without the consent of those who pay it, either in 
person or by deputy ; but here were seven-eighths of the 
nation paying taxes, and without their consent, either in 
person or by deputy. Was this justice? 

Q. How, unconstitutional ? 

A. Of the great rights of the Magna Charta, and other 
charters, this was the greatest, the right of making one’s own 
laws. 

Q. How, impolitic ? 

A. It reduced, by the entire subtraction of the democratic 
branch, the government of Ireland to an oligarchy, instead 
of a mixed constitution, as it formerly was. 

Q. Was this a great evil ? 

A. An oligarchy, at all times, is the worst of governments; 
but the oligarchy of Ireland was the worst of oligarchies. 
The people, in other words the Catholics, being virtually 
extinguished, the oligarchy, or the Protestants, were in pos¬ 
session of all rule; but the oligarchy was composed of 
powerful and ambitious families; hence divisions, corruption, 
factions. England was called in—she assisted, and received 
in turn the most unblushing subservience. 

Q. Do you mean to say that these haughty men, ardently 


devoted to Liberty, to Protestantism, to the Constitution, to 
Ireland, could thus sell themselves to an English minister? 

A. Yes; provided they were allowed to enact the tyrant 
in Ireland, they were content to he the slave in England. 
As for liberty, men who could receive laws from the factions 
of another state, were not free ; as for constitution, men who 
disfranchised the majority of a nation, trampled under every 
constitution ; as for Ireland, men who delivered her laws, 
her commerce, her agriculture, her government, to the hands 
of a jealous rival, were not Irishmen. 

Q. But was this the government of Ireland ? 

A. Yes ; such was the government of Ireland under Anne 
and the two Georges. The country was wasted and trodden 
under foot by the double faction of the Undertakers and the 
Managers. 

Q. Who were they ? 

A. The Managers were the agents of the English faction 
here, the viceroy and his secretaries, the law officers of the 
crown, and a certain quota of Anglo-Irish bishops. The 
Undertakers were the chief of the aristocratic families acting 
and oppressing under them. 

Q. These men constituted, then, virtually, the entire 
legislature and executive of Ireland ? 

A. Yes; in concurrence with their master, the English 

' O 

minister. 

Q. And you think that this was brought about by the 
exclusion and degradation of the Catholics ? 

A. Unquestionably. Had the people been allowed their 
share in the state, such a government could never have 
endured, perhaps could never have existed. 

Q. But did not these very Protestants bring about the 
glorious revolution of 1782 ? 

A. The disputes between the Managers and Undertakers, 
lay the first foundations. A third party profited by these 
disputes, and stepped into influence, between them. The 


85 


oligarchs were opposed to the country and the constitution. 
Their opponents naturally adopted the defence of both. 

Q. But was there no other cause ? 

A. Yes; the fortunate coincidence or concurrence of 
the American war, which produced the arming of a large 
portion of the population, under the name of the Volunteers. 

Q. What was the consequence ? 

A. The popular party, supported by this armed popu¬ 
lation, were enabled triumphantly to pass enactments, which, 
under other circumstances, would have been dismissed with 
opprobrium from the house. 

Q. Who were the achievers of this great revolution ? 

A. The parliamentary promoters were exclusively Pro¬ 
testants and Dissenters. The majority of the Volunteers 
was of the same creed. 

Q. Did it stand ? 

A. No; and for a simple reason. It was wrung from 
England by her fears; as soon as those fears passed away, 
^he resumed what had been extorted. 

Q. But how came it that they passed away ? 

A. The moment the Volunteers gave up their arms, they 
were scattered. The popular party sunk into powerless 
insignificance; they had not the people to support them. 
The Protestants and Dissenters were comparatively few, 
and the Catholics indifferent to the contest 

Q. But why were they indifferent? 

A. Because they could derive little or no advantage 
from its success. They were excluded already from all par¬ 
ticipation in the constitution. The revolutionists of 1782 
confirmed the exclusion. The Catholics cared little about 
the freedom of this or that faction of their masters. 

Q. It thence follows that, had the Catholics been eman¬ 
cipated, or even promised emancipation, the popular party 
would have been able to maintain their ground, and the 
revolution of 1782 would have endured ? 

G 


86 


A. It is most probable. 

Q. How, then, can it be said, by any Irishman, that 
the exclusion of Catholics has tended to maintain the con¬ 
stitution, the independence, or the prosperity of Ireland ? 

A. It appears a manifest absurdity. 

Q. The plea, then, that they still exclude them, to 
maintain the liberty and rights of the country, is false ? 

A. Perfectly so. They excluded them at the sacrifice of 
the liberty and rights of the country, to maintain their own 
ascendancy—that is, their own monopoly. 

Q. But did they not at least relax ? 

A. Yes. In the year 1776, some few concessions were 
granted to the Catholics: they were, a little afterwards, 
followed up by others. The Bill of 1793 restored to the 
Catholics all the privileges which they now enjoy. 

Q. Ho not these relaxations imply an enlightened and 
generous spirit ? 

A. Enlightened to a certain degree; but generous, I 
think not. I consider the Protestant government to have 
been forced to it. 

Q. How ? by their own interests ? 

A. The relaxation in the purchase of land, &c., was 
suggested by this motive. The value of land falls or rises, 

. in proportion to the number of competitors in the market. 
The number of competitors was diminished by the exclusion 
of Catholics. 

Q. But were not the Catholics all poor, and, therefore, 
could not be competitors ? 

A. No. r l he industry of Catholics had thrown them 
into commerce; commerce had enriched them. They were 
ready to purchase ( whenever an occasion should present 
itself. 

Q. It was, therefore, for the interest of the Protestant 
they should be allowed to purchase ? 

A. Landed property rose 10 per cent, in cons 


m 


Q* But why did they allow them to engage in commerce ? 

A. Their oim interest again, and the nature of things, 
compelled them to it. The Catholics constituted the middle 
■ class, as well as the lower: these classes form the chief 
elements of commerce. Monopolies, however they may 
do in politics, kill trade. Besides, the penal laws fell 
powerless on the Continent; and many Catholic families 
enriched themselves in France, Portugal, and Spain. 

Q. They could not, then, prevent them from becoming 
lich; being rich, could they prevent them from obtaining 
education ? 

A. No; education is a luxury: when men are rich, 
they look for luxuries. The Catholics sought, and soon 
acquired, through every expense and danger, the luxury 
of education 

Q. They were thus rich and educated; but why not 
keep them from other privileges ? 

A. It was impossible. Rich and educated men have 
in them the means of acquiring power. It was better 
they should give it to them legally, than force them to 
(take it illegally. 

<*). This, then, was the motive of their granting tl?e 
elective franchise, the right of sitting on grand juries, &c. 

A. It was. Their own interest again adding its in¬ 
fluence. The Elective franchise, for instance, was conceded 
to the forty-shilling freeholders, not from any generosity 
to the peasant and the Catholic, but with an intention to 
consolidate the power of the Aristocrat and the Protestant 

Q. How so ? 

A. They then thought, that, as the Catholic peasantry 
had been debased, they would always continue so. They 
. considered him a mere slave and serf. As in Russia, 
aristocratic influence is counted by so many heads of slaves; 
so, in Ireland, it was counted by so many heads of free¬ 
holders. 


88 


Q. Was not this reasoning at home enforced by cir¬ 
cumstances abroad ? 

A. Yes; the French revolution, and revolutionary 
principles, in full fury at the time, came in with their 
logic in support of these arguments. 

Q. It was thus self-interest in its most selfish and timid 
form, which forced them to this act of concession P 

A. It was the principal inducement. 

Q. But why did they not grant every thing P 

A. From the littleness which usually accompanies 
selfish minds, and the divisions and acquiescence of the 
Catholics. 

Q. But was it not most inconsistent to grant so much, 
and not all; and did they not grant those privileges, which, 
if there was any danger, were the most dangerous? 

A. Precisely. They granted the privilege of election, and 
not of eligibility; they opened the minor situations in the 
state, and not the higher; they favoured the lower, and 
they degraded the upper classes of the community. 

Q. Was this wisely done ? 

A. By no means. If there were no real danger in con¬ 
cession to the more numerous and indignant class, how 
came it there should be any danger in concession to the 
more select and the more enlightened ? If not, why pre¬ 
serve any of those grounds of discontent and discord which 
rendered concession necessary ? 

Q. But it was necessary to grant by degrees ? 

A. No: if the subject has been deprived of rights, and 
it is at all admitted he should resume them, the sooner 
and more amply he resumes them the better. 

Q. You think, then, the Catholic is not dangerous, and 
that there is nothing in his principles or conduct to exclude 
him from a share in the constitution ? 

A. Such is the conclusion we have just drawn from his 
entire history. 


89 


Q. But is it not dangerous to admit him into a Pro¬ 
testant constitution ? 

A. If, by Protestant, is meant the exclusion of Catholics, 
that Protestant constitution has been already violated ; but 
the British constitution is neither Protestant nor Catholic 
exclusively, but comprehensively both ; it was once Catholic, 
it is now Protestant, it was always British. 

Q. Would the admission of Catholics render it less free ? 

A. No ; but more free—admit the people, and you check 
the oligarchy—suppress dissensions, and you unite all in 
controuling undue power—give every one an equal interest 
in the state, and you secure the state. These are all positive 
advantages, all tending to enlarge the freedom of the con¬ 
stitution, and not to shackle it. 

Q. You think, then, the admission of Catholics would 
benefit rather than injure the Protestant constitution? 

A. Undoubtedly. The essence of our constitution is 
freedom, and not Protestantism. 

Q. But would it not directly tend to overturn the Pro¬ 
testant church ? 

A. The contrary. The exclusion of the Catholics tends 
by making them, in the first instance, united—in the next 
hostile—in the third, directing that hostility against the 
Church, as the principal cause of their exclusion, the exclu¬ 
sion of the Catholics, tends to make them infinitely more 
dangerous to the church (if there be any danger in the case), 
than if disembodied, if I may use the expression, and 
neutralized by the concession of their rightful claims. 

Q. But is there no danger in admitting Catholics to 
Parliament, &c. &c. ? 

A. None, whatever. The Catholics excluded, return 
more members favourable to Catholic interests than if 
admitted to the House of Commons, &c. 

Q. Is there any thing to fear from their becoming judges ? 

A. None ; they are already magistrates, assistant bar- 


90 


risters, &c. All these officers are inferior judges. If they 
have not violated their trust in one instance, there is no 
reason to apprehend they will in the other. 

Q. But, still, should there not be some securities? 

A. The Catholic does not claim a new right—he resumes 
an old one, which has been suspended by a momentary 
panic, arising from a disgraceful and fictitious plot. No 
one has a right to ask him for a price or pledge for 
what is his own. A security is a guard, strictly speaking, 
against danger, an antidote against a poison; why ask for 
the guarantee or the antidote, when the danger cannot be fully 
? 

Q. But should we not conciliate, by mutual concessions ? 

A. It ought to be the policy, as it is the duty, of all to 
conciliate; but no man ought to make concessions which 
militate against his sense of right, conscience, and freedom. 

Q. You think, then, there are no grounds in common 
sense, or common justice, why a Catholic should not be a 
British Freeman ? 

A. None whatsoever. 

Q. And to what, then, do you attribute it ? 

A. To the simple principle, obvious through the entire 
history of the country, the apprehension of losing a mo¬ 
nopoly. 

Q. Are not their lands secure ? 

A. Certainly. The Catholics swear, “ That they will 
defend, to the utmost of their power, the settlement and 
arrangement of property in this country, as established by 
the laws now in being. 1 ’ Catholics, besides, hold land 
themselves so generally under this same Act of Settlement, 
by leasehold or purchase, that any disturbance would affect 
them quite as much as the Protestant. 

Q. Is not their church secure ? 

A. Certainly: the Catholics “ disclaim, disavow, and 
solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present church 



91 


establishment for the purpose of substituting a Catholic 
establishment in its stead.*” And farther, they swear, “ that 
they will not exercise any privilege to which they are or may 
be entitled, to disturb and weaken the Protestant religion 
and Protestant government in Ireland.*” 

Q. What, then, do Protestants fear ? 

A. The diminution of their power by sharing it—the 
diminution of the portion of the public wealth and contri¬ 
butions which they enjoy—in other words, of their honours 
and places—by the diminution of their power. 

Q. Are these places numerous ? 

A. In Ireland much too many, in proportion to its 
necessities or resources. 

Q. This, then, is the object of, and you think it is effected 
by, Catholic exclusion ? 

A. Certainly ; by exclusion you produce irritation, or the 
fear of it—to keep it down you require a large army—the 
Catholics are discontented, and you require a rich church 
to oppose them. Here are pasturages for the Protestant 
aspirants in every grade of society. 

Q. This, then, is Protestant Ascendancy ? 

A. Yes; this is what is meant by Protestant Ascendancy— 
that a certain number of privileged persons, or classes, should 
have the power of solely enjoying the revenues of the state, 
and that the remainder should be employed in producing 
them. 

Q. Do you think such a system can last ? 

A. By no means. 

Q. Is it not wise, then, whilst there is yet time, to yield a 
portion, in order to retain the remainder P 

A. Yes; we cannot choose too soon when we have to 
choose between quiet and well-directed concession, or a 
general convulsion of the state. 

Q. And what security is there that the Catholics will not 
ask for more ? 


m 


A. For all that is just they should ask, and what they ask 
should be granted; beyond it, the common sense and united 
energy of a powerful nation will, and ought to forbid them to 
proceed farther. 

Q. And you give no other ? 

A. No other is necessary. I know only of one maxim 
for the prosperity and power of nations as well as indi¬ 
viduals. 

Q. What is it ? 

A. Be just, andfear not. Time and a contented people 
will do the rest. 


x 




FOURTH SECTION. 


OUGHT NOT A CATHOLIC BE A BRITISH 

FREEMAN ? 

Question. You think, then, that the grounds upon which 
the Catholics are excluded from the advantages of British 
freedom are insufficient ? 

Answer. I do; on the principle both of justice and ex¬ 
pediency, and reasoning equally from theory and expe¬ 
rience. 

Q. But is the Catholic possessed of such means within 
himself, and is the country in such a state at the present 
moment, as to warrant his admission to the privileges of 
British citizens ? 

A. Yes ; the Catholic has intelligence, wealth, energy, and 
perseverance, equal to the prosecution of such a cause, and 
at a moment when the prosecution of such a cause is 
particularly dangerous. 

Q. How, intelligence ? I thought the Catholics were a 
degraded caste, ignorant, superstitious, incapable of edu¬ 
cation, and that this was a just motive for their exclusion ? 

A. No; were it true that Catholics did not know how to 
make a right use of freedom, it would not be less true 
that they never could learn to use it rightly, if they con¬ 
tinued to be excluded from its enjoyment. 

Q. But have not Protestants often urged that objection ? 




94 

A. I believe so; but Protestants should, least of all, 
urge it. 

Q. You do not think, then, that the Catholic religion 
encourages ignorance ? 

A. No; I see no necessary connection between ignorance 
and the profession of any religion. 

Q. But were not the Irish notoriously inferior in edu¬ 
cation and intelligence to the English ? 

A. For a time they were, but the fault was not theirs. 

Q. But was it not the fault of their Priests? 

A. No ; but of those who persecuted their Priests, and 
made Education penal. If the roots be cut up, is it strange 
the tree should wither ? It is childish for men to complain of 
consequences, while they continue to approve of the causes 
which produced them. 

Q. You attribute, then, to the Protestants, the former 
ignorance of the Catholics ; but does it not continue ? 

A. Far from it. Schools were founded the moment the 
penal laws were relaxed, and Catholic education has since 
been rapidly advancing upon Protestant. 

Q. But did not the Catholics refuse the instructions offered 
by the Kildare Street Society ? 

A. As long as their motives were considered honest they 
joined them ; when they ceased to be so, they separated from 
them. 

Q. What do you mean by honest ? 

A. I mean, impartially considering the religious feelings 
and opinions of all parties, and acting frankly on such con¬ 
siderations. 

Q. This, therefore, was not educating the Catholics ? 

A. Certainly not. To educate the Irish Catholics effec¬ 
tively, the first thing necessary was to make education 
acceptable to the Irish Catholic. Now, this could not be 
done by rousing his hostility and dislike. It was showing 
him a rich garden, full of fruits, through bars. It is the 


95 

Protestant, then, who has to blame himself for the ignorance 
of the Catholic. 

Q. Are the lower classes desirous of education ? 

A. Generally speaking, they are. Though poor, and 
obliged to support two church establishments, a far greater 
number of them arc educated than formerly, even in pro¬ 
portion to the general advance of civilization. 

Q. But was not all this produced by the Kildare Street 
Society Schools ? 

A. It was caused—1st. By the relaxations in the penal 
code. 2nd. By the hostility and emulation excited by the 
Kildare Street Society. 3rd. By the New Reformation, 
or rather by that re-action and excitement which it caused. 
If men read the Bible, they will soon read something more. 

Q. Did political education accompany this ? 

A. Necessarily. The frequent meetings, discussions, 
publications, and papers, have had the effect of rousing the 
greatest anxiety for political knowledge in the people. 

Q. Is this temporary ? 

A. I think not ; knowledge begets knowledge; the more 
men know, the more desirous and determined they are to 
know more. 

Q. What effect has this had upon other classes ? 

A. It has taught the upper classes of the Catholics to 
consider the wants and wishes of the lower—to weigh well 
every question which can be of interest to their body, and 
thus, bv degrees, the entire mass of national policy—to en¬ 
courage these inquiries by their presence, their speaking, 
their writing, &c.—in a word, it has given to all classes a 
great intellectual impulse. 

Q. But this is confined to one great object? 

A. At present; but this subject removed, it will soon 
extend itself to others. The point is to acquire the habit— 
it is already acquired. 

Q. But what advantage does this habit of inquiring and 
reasoning on public matters produce ? 


96 


A. It produces by quiet and gradual means, all great and 
useful, revolutions in the government of all human societies. 

Q. You are of opinion, then, that this alone will suffice, 
that physical force is unnecessary ? 

A. Physical force should never be employed except in 
extremes. These should be unavoidable and incontestible. 
As Europe now stands, it is not likely that any of her 
governors will be mad enough to push matters to such a 
crisis. 

Q. Why so? 

A. Because, for the most part, the governors of Europe 

* 

are tolerably well acquainted with the state of their 
respective countries ; they know that the state of their 
finances, of their foreign relations, &c., are not such as to 
justify any new risk. 

Q. Does this apply to England ? 

A. Especially. The national debt, amounting to nearly 
one thousand millions—the precarious condition of her trade 
—the difficulties resulting from want of confidence—and the 
breaking up of so many internal markets, much the most 
profitable for her manufactures—the jealousy and progress of 
other nations, are all motives sufficient to prevent recurrence 
to coercion. 

Q. The governors would not benefit by such means; 
would the governed ? 

A. No. Were Ireland sufficiently strong in numbers, 
resources, and discipline, to resist England, what would pre¬ 
clude England from renewing the contest under more 
favourable auspices at other periods ? Ireland would 
become the battle-field of other nations, and would probably 
fall again under the ancient dominion, either by treachery 
or open force. 

Q. It ought, then, to be the policy, as unquestionably it is 
the duty, of each good citizen to suppress and keep under, 
any tendency or inclination of the kind ? 

A. Undoubtedly. He who acts otherwise, be he Catho- 


97 


lie or Protestant, Patrician or Plebeian, proves himself 
either ignorant of the interests of his country, or a traitor to 
the interests which he knows. 

Q. How is this tendency to be put down ? 

A. By instructing the people in their true interests, and 
the means by which they may be best promoted. 

Q. And you conceive this instruction far more efficient 
than physical force ? 

A. Far more efficient. Government, in every country 
which affects pretensions to freedom, must, in the great 
questions of public policy, be carried on in obedience to pub¬ 
lic opinion. The more general and the more sound this 
opinion, the more efficient it necessarily will be. 

Q. Has this knowledge of late years been much diffused 
in Ireland ? 

A. Very much—1st. By encouraging public education. 
2nd. By public and free discussion of all matters of public 
policy, which regard the Catholic body. 3rd. By communi¬ 
cating, through the medium of newspapers, &c., this 
knowledge to the people. 

Q. The Clergy, then, have great influence on the people ; 
whence does it arise ? 

A. From the habit of suffering in a common cause ; from 
the exemplary discharge of their duties towards their flocks ; 
from the neglect and persecution of the opposite persuasion. 

Q. Is this extraordinary or censurable ? 

A. Extraordinary it is surely not, for human nature and 
its daily operations are not extraordinary, and this is human 
nature. Men hate those who hate them, and like those who 
like them. Neither is it censurable. Gratitude and attach¬ 
ment to those who visit, console, instruct them, and help 
them, is a virtue, not a vice. 

Q. But do you not call this priest-ridden ? 

A. No. Priest-ridden implies an undue submission to 
ecclesiastical or spiritual influence. 


98 


Q. But are there not many examples of this ? 

A. There may be some—but there are many likewise to 
the contrary. The people are obedient to their pastors in 
religious matters, as they ought to be to their religious 
teachers ; and in civil, they regard them in the light of other 
citizens, and assent to, and dissent from them with the same 
facility. 

•f 

Q. You think, then, this influence arises from their 
concurrence with, and not their direction of, popular 
opinion P 

A. I do. The priest in politics is as much a follower of 
the people, as the people of the priest. 

Q. Has not this influence considerably increased of lafe 
years ? 

A. It has been more displayed, and become more ob¬ 
servable, since circumstances were such as to force this 
display. It is impossible to live in any part of Ireland, and 
not to feel a portion of the commotion which agitates the 
country; the commotion is universal. 

Q. The Clergy have, then, like the rest of the country, 
become politicians ? 

A. Yes; because they form a very important part of 
the country. 

Q. Is this to be regretted ? 

A. Not under present circumstances. It is true, that the 
.'St station for a clergyman is the interior of the sanctu- 

j and by the veil of the Tabernacle ; but Paul remem¬ 
bered he was a Roman ; and an Irish Priest , in the present 
times, cannot forget that he is also an Irish Citizen. 

Q. Should these circumstances change, you think the 
clergy would change with them ? 

A. Unavoidably ; if the country be tranquillized, the 
clergy will, with joy, return ]to their former tranquil 
avocations. 

Q. It is, then, in the power of government to produce this P 


99 


A. Yes ; the government can tranquillize the country. 

Q. In the interval this influence of the clergy is applied, 
to add new force to the cause of education and of the 
Catholics ? 

A. Yes ; their influence is a powerful additional means 
to diffuse education, and a just knowledge, amongst the 
people, of their interests and rights. 

Q. What is the result of this general diffusion of edu¬ 
cation and political intelligence ? 

A. One of the most immediate is—w'ealth ; intelligence 
produces a desire of bettering one’s condition ; the desire 
produces industry and exertion; education, the best and 
most useful means of applying it—all combined—wealth. 

Q. Have the Catholics experienced this ? 

A. Yes; by the penal laws they were, as I have said, for the 
most part thrown into commercial pursuits—in commerce, by 
patient and persevering exertion, they necessarily accumu¬ 
lated capital—this capital they have applied in mortgages 
on Protestant landed property, and in many instances to 
the purchase of their estates. 

Q. Has this transfer of landed property been the only 
means of enriching the Catholics ? 

A. By no means. They have for a considerable period 
been in the habit of taking leases under Protestant land¬ 
lords. The state of the country required long periods— 
they were granted. Thus a class of men, the Catholic 
middlemen, rose up as independent, if not as rich, as 
their landlords. 

Q. Is not the Subletting, or non-subletting Act, calculated 
to diminish their number ? 

A. To a certain degree. It will not affect the old 
middlemen ; it will prevent the creation of new. The 
land will, in future, be leased at its real value formerly 
the land was leased below it, in consequence of the state 
of the country; it was a bonus given for regularity of 


100 


payment by absentee landlords. But, in almost all classes, 
the occupying tenant must be Catholic. 

Q. Do you think, then, the non-subletting Act will dimi¬ 
nish Catholic wealth ? 

A. In the aggregate unquestionably not; it may be 
a violent measure, and in its details extremely defective 
and injurious; but its final effect will not be to impoverish 
them in the mass. It will only throw capital from agri¬ 
culture into manufacture and commerce. 

Q. It is not possible, then, to prevent Catholics from be¬ 
coming and continuing a wealthy portion of the community P 

A. Impossible. All the agricultural portion is very 
nearly in these hands. So also is a large portion of the com¬ 
mercial, in many instances supplied from the agricultural. 
If the country improves, the Catholics must, of course, 
improve, more than any part of the country. 

Q. But the Protestants are the proprietors? 

A. Yes; but in a commercial state there is a constant 
tendency to the transfer of property: lands subject to 
entail, become, in process of time, encumbered, and are 
mortgaged, or sold ; capitalists, at least in Ireland, prefer that 
species of investiture; the wants on one side, and the wishes 
on the other, gradually will give the Catholics their legitimate 
proportion of the landed property of the country. 

Q. But should not this acquisition of landed property 
be restrained by law ? 

A. It is not possible. No law which does not dissolve 
the state can attain it; the wealth will be acquired in 
despite of every effort; the only point in question is, how 
it shall be employed—whether usefully or dangerously ? 

Q. Of what applications do you speak ? 

A. If it be not allowed to be applied in the same manner, 
and with the same advantages as the wealth of other citizens, 
it will be expended in a much worse—if not within the pale 
of the constitution, it will be without. It is not to be 


101 


imagined, that, with wealth in their hands and intelligence 
to guide it, the possessors will sit down quietly, and not 
avail themselves of the advantages and influence arising 
from intelligence and wealth. 

Q. What do you mean by its advantages and influence? 
A. I mean the enjoyment of those constitutional rights, 
legitimate station, and public consideration, which wealth 
and intelligence ought and must give. 

Q. You think, then, that if not admitted peaceably to 
equality with other citizens, the Catholics must ultimately 
obtain admission by the moral force of wealth and intel¬ 
ligence ? 

A. Yes. But in the interval the country must be subject 
to frequent paroxysms, and exposed at all times to sudden 
danger, from this unnatural and coercive state. 

C • f • * « f 

Q. Are not the Catholics very numerous ? 

A. Yes. The Catholic population has increased—is in- 

•• T» 

creasing—and must increase most rapidly. 

Q. But have not their numbers been of late diminished 
by the progress of the new reformation ? 

A. During the bad season some converts were made, who 
were re-converted during the good which followed. 

Q. Were there many ? 

A. A few thousands, say the Reformers—a few hundreds, 

r • r * * ' ' 

say the Catholics. 

Q. Which account do you think correct ? 

A. It is immaterial. The Catholic conversions were quite 
as numerous; besides, hundreds or thousands are of no 

. • f * '-«*■, * * 

consequence, when the question is of millions. The annual 
increase of the population of Ireland is calculated at 
91,448 (taking the years elapsed from 1791 to 1804), one- 
sixth of this population are Non-Catholics, and five-sixths 
Catholics: about 15,000 Protestants are thus born every 
year, and 76,000 Catholics. 

Q. Well, what do you deduce from this? / 

if 


102 


A. There is thus an excess of Catholic over Protestant 
births every year: or, more simply, of Catholics over 
Protestants of about 61,000; so that, allowing one or two 
thousand to the new reformation, there will be still a yearly 
addition to Irish catholicity of 50 or 60,000 souls. 

Q. You do not, then, think there are much hopes of 
protestantizing Ireland ? 

A. Not much, by the present or late process. 

Q. Why do you say the late ? 

A. Because this church experiment , like other bubbles, 
has swelled, burst, and vanished in its due season. It 
is not, as I have said, a matter of preaching, but popu¬ 
lation ; and men will marry, and women have children, 
in despite of new preachers and new acts of parliament. 

Q. But is not the encouragement given to emigration 
likely to retrench their numbers ? 

A. No. Suppose it in operation (which it is not, nor 
likely to be) what would be the consequence ? Are the 
Catholics only to emigrate ? If not , the question occurs, 
who will feel emigration most—who will emigrate most ? 

Q. But the Catholics are poorer, and will be more dis¬ 
posed to emigrate ? N . 

A. I doubt it. The Catholics are cultivators attached 
to the soil—the Protestants, artisans and adventurers— 
they carry their industry, and therefore their capital, with 
them. The proportion of emigrants, when emigration is 
left to its natural course, is always in favour of the rich 
and intelligent artisan over the impoverished and ignorant 
cultivator. The Protestants will emigrate, at least in equal 
numbers with the,Catholics, but the Protestant body will feel 
the diminution far more than the Catholic. 

Q. You do not think, then, Emigration calculated to 
reduce the numbers of the Catholics P 

A. No.—1st. Emigration at all times is a palliative; the 
space it creates will be soon filled up.—2nd. The emigra- 


103 


tion of the Irish to Canada would be, under present cir¬ 
cumstances and to the extent contemplated, an emigration 
to the United States. It would strengthen the hand we 
ought to weaken, and rouse the province we should keep 
most quiet.—3rd. Emigration, to be felt, ought to be by 
millions —millions of men will cost millions of money. Is 
England willing to expend millions on an experiment P 

Q. But is not the Subletting Act calculated to diminish 
the numbers of the Catholics? 

A. Not more their numbers, than their wealth. Its first 
operations, much too violent, will, no doubt, controul them; 
but the population will not diminish, marriages will not 
cease; the large portions of the next generations will be 
only located differently ; they will become manufacturers. 

Q. Why do you think that marriages will not diminish ? 

A. Because it is only in a very improved state of society 
that the prudential check, as Malthus calls it, will be felt— 
that is, delaying to marry until assured of a subsistence. 

Q. You think this is not likely to operate in Ireland? 

A. Certainly not. Children are considered, even by the 
poorest, as blessings, and not curses, to their parents. 

Q. But poverty must then increase ? 

A. Necessarily ; unless other employment in lieu of agri¬ 
cultural labour, of which they have been deprived, be pro¬ 
cured for the peasantry, unless manufactures be established 
in the country. 

Q. But this is difficult at present—the poor will thus 
be unprovided for, and perish ? 

A. The poor cannot perish without the rich perishing 
also. It is their interest, as well as that of the poor, to 
prevent and suppress epidemics; epidemics follow famine. 
They must provide against famine by giving the poor food, 
if they cannot give employment. In other words, they must 
found and support mendicities, asylums, hospitals, &c., if they 
do not establish manufactories. The whole system is a vicious 


one. 


104 


Q. It thus will come in the shape of a regular poor- 
tax on the country ? 

A. Precisely. The population will not be diminished; 
but the rich will be taxed more. 

Q. The government, then, cannot get rid of this burthen- 
some population ? 

A. Not of the population, but it can of the burthen, by 
employing the population, or rather allowing the population 
to be employed properly, I mean in useful public and 
private works. 

Q. But, surely, the government does not interfere with 
their employment ? 

A. It does remotely and directly. It interferes remotely 
thus:—Employment cannot be given without capital— 
capital will not come, or accumulate, without security— 
the government refuses this security—for it refuses creating 
the causes which give it—the government, consequently, 
refuses employment. 

Q. But how does government refuse security ? 

A. By allowing the causes which produce insecurity to 
continue ; by permitting discord and animosities; by not 
removing the principle which create them. 

Q. But these very animosities prevent government from 
adopting measures for the pacification of the country ? 

A. This is as reasonable as to say, that, because there 
is a high state of inflammation, the physician is not to apply 
means to extinguish the causes which produce it; or be¬ 
cause a civil war rages, no measure is to be taken to settle 
the grounds of dispute, until both parties be compelled, 
from their mutual weakness, to lay down their arms. The 
government raises four millions of taxes in Ireland ; these 
four millions are spent in support of the army and admi¬ 
nistration; and not only these four millions, but many 
more. 

Q. But where does Ireland obtain these additional 
millions ? 


105 


A. She borrows from England, and thus adds annually to 
her debt. 

Q. But this addition is absolutely necessary ? 

A. If it be necessary to have a large establishment, the 
next question arises, how has this necessity been created ? 
Scotland has no Court, &c., and her military force amounts 
to little more than two thousand men. 

Q. But Scotland is tranquil, and does not require it ? 

A. Precisely ; but Scotland was not always so. She was 
tranquillized by the legislative removal of all penalties in 
matters of religion, and not by force of arms. The moment 
her citizens were placed on a level with other British sub¬ 
jects, she no longer required an army to enforce and ensure 
her obedience. 

Q. You think, then, the same policy would produce the 
same effects in Ireland ? 

A. Yes. Human nature has not changed since; human 
nature is the same in Scotland, as in Ireland. 

Q. The men, then, who would perpetuate these penalties, 
perpetuate, in effect, this army ? 

A. Undoubtedly, and all the expenditure consequent on, 
or necessary for, its support. 

Q. The government thus leaves the people unemployed ? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And cannot prevent the rapid increase of the popu¬ 
lation ? 

A. It cannot. 

Q. But do you not think a rapidly increasing and totally 
unemployed population, a most dangerous element in a 
state ? 

A. A most dangerous one indeed; so dangerous, that, if 
permitted to reach its utmost extent, it must terminate in 
revolutionizing, and, perhaps, dissolving the state. 

Q. What, then, is to be done ? 

A. A wise government would see, that such a population 


106 


be employed or diminished: the sword only can effect the 
latter; but the sword may be answered by the sword. 

Q. You think, then, there is no alternative but employ¬ 
ment ? 

A. None other; and if you do not employ them in 
Ireland, you must employ them in England. 

Q. But, then, laws may be enacted which may prevent 
them from leaving their ownc ountry, and coming to Eng¬ 
land, and impoverishing it, by lowering the rate of wages ? 

A, Such laws might be enacted, but they would be 
inoperative and dangerous. What, in the next session, would 
prevent any member from moving, or the House passing a 
similar restriction in favor of Lancashire or Sussex— 
Ireland is not less a part of the empire than Sussex or 
Lancashire ? 

Q. This unemployed population must, then, either con¬ 
tinue unemployed, and be confined to Ireland (which would 
be doubly dangerous), or allowed to emigrate and impoverish 
England ? 

A. Certainly. 

Q. But we can send them back ? 

A. Yes; but the evil will already have taken place, by 
the sudden introduction of numerous additional competitors 
for employment, and cause an immediate disturbance of the 
rate of wages, &c., by the necessity which it will impose of 
paying large sums in the way of parochial relief, in order to 
remove them to their own country. 

Q. But can such elements as these (consistent with the 
public safety) be rendered really available to the advance¬ 
ment, or achievement of the Catholic cause ? 

A. Yes ; if properly combined—that is, in such a manner 
as may be perfectly consistent with the laws, and at the 
same time may unite all classes of citizens, heart and hand, 
in the same pursuit. 

Q. But has this been done? 


107 


A. Most effectively; by “ agitation ” and “ organi¬ 
zation? Every class of citizens has been fully roused, and 
fully instructed in the nature of their rights, the nature of 
their grievances, and in the means best calculated to remove 
the one, and to obtain the other. 

Q. This, you call, agitation ?—Is it not liable to great 
abuse, and productive of the worst consequences ? 

A. A wise man will not ask whether such means be liable 
to abuse, but whether such abuse can be prevented ? Their 
effect is to be judged by the final result only. No grievance 
was ever yet redressed by silence and tranquillity. To be 
attended to, men must complain; and complaint must, of 
necessity, produce agitation. 

Q. What do you mean by organization ? 

A. I mean the formation of properly-constituted bodies, 
in just gradation, acting with each other for one common 
cause. 

Q. Did such an organization exist amongst the Catholics ? 

A. Yes; the Association, the Liberal Club system, and 
the Catholic Rent collection, forms such an organization as I 
have just described. 

Q. How did they constitute this organization ? 

A. The association, sitting in Dublin, formed the head or 
Metropolitan Club or Association ; the County Clubs, sitting 
in every county, formed the secondary clubs or associations; 
the Parish Clubs, sitting in the parishes, formed the branch 
clubs or associations. 

Q. How were they connected ? 

A. The Parish clubs were dependent on the County 
clubs, and the County clubs again dependent on the Asso¬ 
ciation. 

Q. Who composed the Parish clubs? 

A. They were composed, for the most part, of the clergy¬ 
men of the parish, one or two of the resident gentlemen, and 
the most respectable and intelligent farmers. 


las 


Q. Who composed the County clubs ? 

A. The principal members of the Parish clubs; and in like' 
manner the principal members of the County clubs generally 
attended the Association. 

Q. There was thus an intimate union between all parts 
of the system ? 

A. Most intimate, and it was farther strengthened by the 
collection of the Catholic Rent. 

Q. What were the principal duties imposed on these clubs ? 

A. The duties of each are minutely detailed in the reso¬ 
lutions of the Provincial meetings, which were assemblies of 
the clubs, &c., of the entire province. They referred to 
the maintaining and extending of the elective franchise, the 
inquiry into local grievance, the circulation of constitutional 
knowledge, &c. &c., by means of public meetings, tracts, 
newspapers, &c. 

Q. Did this organization extend to most parts of Ireland ? 

A. Yes; it was nearly universal: in a short time it 
would have extended to the entire country. 

Q. The Association, or head club, would thus be enabled 
to command the feelings and energies of the entire Catholic 
population ? 

A. Certainly; both by the supremacy of its power and 
influence, and the intervention and agency of its members, 
who were also members of the County and Parish clubs. 

Q. But was there not some analogy between this organiza¬ 
tion and the organization of the United Irishmen? 

A. There was some slight resemblance in form, but none 
whatever in principle. 

Q. But this organization of the United Irishmen was 
totally ineffective, against the energy and wisdom of the 
British Government ? 

A. There were several reasons for that.—First, the orga¬ 
nization of the United Irishmen was limited to Ulster and 
a portion of Leinster; there was thus no really national 


109 


combination. The South was unenlightened and inert; and. 
Secondly, the objects had in view were totally distinct. The 
committees of the United Irishmen looked to a separation 
from England, and the establishment of a republic as the 
end, and to physical force as the means. The Catholic 
Association and Clubs looked to a real and permanent union 
with England, and an enlargement (by the admission of all 
citizens to its blessings) of the constitution as the end, and 
to moral force only as the means. 

Q. But was not the Catholic Association, with its dependent 
Clubs, the cause and promoter of all the excitement which 
prevailed in the country ? 

A. No; the causes were the grievances, and the sense of 
indignation which these grievances produced in the Catholic 
mind. The Association and its Clubs were the expression 
only of this sense—the form which it had gradually as¬ 
sumed. 

Q. But could not this form and expression be suppressed 
or controuled ? 

A. Totally impossible, as long as the grievance and 
indignation which produced it endured—the ingenuity of 
the sufferer would soon evade the ingenuity of any Act of 
Parliament. 

Q. But could it not be put down, by the strong arm of 
the law ? 

A. No ; there is no law which can prevent an aggrieved 
man from feeling himself aggrieved, nor a determined man, 
in some manner or other, from expressing it. 

Q. But he might, at least, be prevented from expressing it 

publicly ? ' 

A. But of what use would that be to a government ? it 

would only superadd to its other difficulties the necessity of 
a strict espionage. Allowing this espionage to be as strict as 
possible, it could effect nothing without collateral measures ; 


110 


a total suppression of the liberty of the press, a suspension of 
the rights of person, property, &c., would be also requisite. 
The only change the government could effect, would be the 
changing of a confederacy, into a conspiracy. 

Q. You think, then, that the most despotic government, 
by the most despotic measures, could not have suppressed the 
Catholic Association ? 

A. It might have suppressed the Catholic Association— 
that is, it might have suppressed a name —as it suppressed 
the Convention, Committee, Board, &c., of the Catholics— 
but Catholic Association, never. 

Q. But supposing the Catholic Association had thus been 
forcibly suppressed ? 

A. You would do nothing, unless you also could sup¬ 
press, or change, the men who composed it. The 
Association is co-extensive with Ireland; the units would 
soon re-unite—the Association would resolve into the clubs, 
and the clubs into dinner-parties, &c., as in the instance of 
the late movement in France, which produced a liberal 
chamber, and, subsequently, a liberal ministry. 

Q. What was the nature of those dinner parties ? 

A. The severe police of the late ministry precluded con¬ 
siderable meetings, but it could not prevent dinners. There 
were thus assemblages of fifteen or twenty persons held 
almost every day; each of the persons assisting held his 
dinner the succeeding week, to which a succession of new 
guests were invited ; thus what could not be done in mass 
was done in detail. Public spirit and constitutional know¬ 
ledge quietly progressed, and when the ministry were 
sleeping over their imaginary success, the ministry were 
suddenly awakened by their fall. 

Q. And would the Catholics have adopted this mea¬ 
sure ? 

A. It would have been in their power to have adopted it. 


Ill 


To prevent it, the government would be obliged to maintain 
spies at every dinner table in the country. 

Q. But the imprisonment of two or three would have 
been sufficient to break this up ? 

A. No; where there are no witnesses, there is little 
resolution. But where an entire nation of sympathizing men 
look on, it is impossible to be a coward; thousands would 
have marched to the gaols in such a cause; public opinion 
would have considered them martyrs. 

Q. But do you mean to say that so powerful a govern¬ 
ment as the British, could not get rid of such an incubus on 
the country ? 

A. I do. The justice of governments in an enlightened 
and free country, is their strength ; every act of injustice 
weakens them; every act of injustice strengthens their ad¬ 
versaries. As long as the cause of the Association was just, 
the government who struck at it weakened itself, and 
strengthened the Association; their only course was to prove 
to the public that the cause of the Association was unjust, or, 
being just, to attend to it. They could not do the first— 
they had no alternative left them but the second. 

Q. But why could they not do the first ? The Associ¬ 
ation, and its dependencies were surel unconstitutional, 
illegal, seditious, &c. ? 

A. It has been the fashion to call it so. But what is 
meant by unconstitutional ? Something opposed to the 
constitution. The Association was instituted to obtain re¬ 
dress of grievances by means of petition,—petitions could not 
be conducted without expense—this expense could not be 
met without contributions ; these things are all consti¬ 
tutional. 

Q. But did not the Association obtain a power, and 
exercise functions not contemplated by the constitution ? 

A. That power was the result of public opinion, and 


112 


exercised by influence and not by force. The Constitution 
does not prohibit, for it could not prevent such opinion or such 
influence. It is true, it did not contemplate it, but neither 
did it contemplate the cause which produced it, the effective 
disfranchisement of one-third of the empire, for which such 
Constitution was designed, the practical slavery of millions 
in the midst of written liberty ; such a power and such 
functions were extra-constitutional, but not unconstitutional. 

Q. But was it not illegal ? 

A. I should be sorry to be guilty of such a libel on his 
Majesty’s government ; the Act of Parliament was there— 
if it were applicable , why was it not applied by his Majesty’s 
Attorney-General ; if inapplicable , there was no dis¬ 
obedience, and no illegality. 

Q. But at least it was seditious ? 

A. Which is the greater encourager of sedition, he who 
expresses grievance, or he who inflicts it ? But the Associa¬ 
tion, and the Clubs were instituted, and acted not for the 
purpose of exciting, but for the purpose of suppressing 
sedition. 

Q. This appears to me impossible ? 

A. The public mind once excited, it required a regulator 
and controuler ; the electricity generated required direc¬ 
tion ; if left to itself it would have produced destruction : 
the Association regulated, controuled, directed, generally; 
but the Association could not be every where. Clubs were 
necessary ; each Club, in its local and respective department, 
carried into effect the intention of the Association. 

Q. You think, then, that the Association moderated 
rather than roused the public mind ? 

A. It roused, undoubtedly, the country, but to efforts 
strictly legal and constitutional ; it also moderated and 
repressed: a burning sense of wrong pervaded the lower 
classes; they sought redress in their own way—they were 


113 


indignant, but blind—they saw no remedy but physical 
force. The Association came between them and their pas¬ 
sions—they gave them a far better—moral force ; the 
proper direction of that force they took into their own 
hands; they thus rescued it from the misdirection of the 
multitude. 

Q. The Association, then, with all its subordinate ma¬ 
chinery, was, truly speaking, a mere moral engine ? 

A. Yes ; and the most noble instance of the kind, 
perhaps (as will yet be acknowledged by posterity), in the 
history of any country. It was felt by the Irish Catholic 
that all struggles of mere brute force, between England and 
Ireland, must be fatal, at least to the latter; history and 
reason taught him the lesson. His policy was, then, to 
suppress all tendency to such a contest—it was of the first 
importance to his cause to keep the people quiet. 

Q. And do you think that the Association kept them 
quiet ? 

A. There cannot be the least doubt of it ; when the 
Association Began, seven counties were in a state of in¬ 
surrection—they were instantly calmed. Ribbonism extended 
in the north-western counties—the Association met it 
wherever it appeared. Private hatred and public feud 
desolated the land—the Association annihilated them. 
Large and dangerous meetings took place in the South— 
they scattered at the voice of the Association. 

Q. It had no analogy, then, to the organization of 82, or. 

of 98 ? 

A. The organization of 82, and of 98, was designed, as I 
have said, to turn to practical effect the numerical and 
physical force in their hands—the organization, here men¬ 
tioned, was to render that force unnecessary. 

Q. But was not the Association, at least, intemperate ? 

A. Its members occasionally have expressed indignant 
feelings, in indignant language ; but no reasonable man 


114 


willask, whether they had used the language , but whe¬ 
ther they had good grounds for the feeling. Some excuse 
is surely to be made for men jaded by past, and galled 
by present suffering; the oppressor should not be con¬ 
founded with the oppressed ; tyranny is always tranquil, 
and successful tyranny especially so. Besides, as in indi¬ 
vidual cases, the provocation should be taken with the offence; 
it cannot be expected that the Catholic will always ‘parry — 
it is in human nature that he should sometimes thrust. 

Q. But has not this intemperance deterred many Pro¬ 
testants from joining the Catholics ? 

A. Unreasonably so. Let the Protestant Englishman 
make it his own case; suppose he were stripped of one only 
of his civil rights, what would be his feelings ?—The feelings 
of John Hampden. Suppose it was not one, but of a 
multitude , he had been deprived ? What produced in Ire¬ 
land an Association—in England would have produced, as 
it already had produced, not an association, but a rebellion. 

Q. But then is it not impolitic, though it may not be 
unjust ? 

A. The Catholics had two objects to attain. To rouse 
the Irish people—to conciliate the English. The first was the 
more pressing. The English Catholics to the present day, 
the Irish down to 1756, were extremely conciliating; they 
gained nothing. 

Q. But has not this very intemperance produced a for¬ 
midable reaction t 

A. No : it could not produce what already existed. 

Q. You do not think, then, that it produced the Bruns¬ 
wick Clubs ? 

A. No: it is a notorious fact, that the Orange Society 
had continued in existence, though under false colours, in 
despite of statutes. This apparent creation of Brunswick 
Clubs was not a change of thing, but a change of name. 

Q. But did it not call them into an increased activity? 


115 


A. It was not the intemperance of the Association, but 
the apprehension of an early admission of the Catholics into 
the Constitution which caused it. 

Q. It was, then, inevitable : but did it not materially 
injure the cause of the Catholics ? 

A. The contrary; for it enabled the Minister to judge 
impartially between the supporters and opponents of the mea¬ 
sure, and to ascertain whether the latter possessed the num¬ 
bers, the influence, the rank, the wealth, or the intelligence 
of the country, to which they were in the habit of laying 
such frequent claim. 

Q. And what was likely to have been the result of this ? 

A. A great objection to concession would have been 
removed, could it have been proved that the voice of the 
country was in favour, and not adverse to our claims. 

Q. And has this been realized ? 

A. Fully: the Brunswick Clubs have discovered only, the 
weakness and intemperance of a bad cause. 

Q. How, the weakness ? 

A. In England, they are few and contemptible, therefore 
proof that they are not acceptable to the English people; 
in Ireland, they have the majority of the aristocracy, and 
nearly the entire people against them. 

Q. How, intemperance ? 

A. They have not called for legislative coercion only, 
but they have also menaced the government with revolt , 
and the country with blood. 

Q. Do you think this conduct loyal, constitutional, or 
Christian ? 

A. Loyal! when their loyalty is conditional, on the ac¬ 
quiescence only of the sovereign with their selfish and ex¬ 
travagant desires—Constitutional! when the first principle of 
their political creed is, to deprive the king of the affections 
of one-third of his subjects, and the Constitution of their 
services and support—Christian and Protestant! when the 


116 


first principle of tlieir Protestantism is the propagation of its 
mild doctrines by the bayonet and the sword. 

Q. Are these men, then, friends to the House of Bruns¬ 
wick, and the Protestant establishment of these realms ? 

A. No, but its worst foes, for they violate the principles 
—they rebel against the authority—they endanger the se¬ 
curity which placed that family on the throne, and which 
obtained for this country those very Protestant establishments 
which at this moment they invoke and blaspheme. 

Q. The name, then, of Brunswicker is an impudent 
assumption ? 

A. They have no more title to that name than to the 
name of a good Irishman, true Freeman, or a charitable 
Christian. 

Q. But if these be the principles of the Brunswickers, do 
you not think the Catholics equally inclined to retort ? 

A. No; the Catholic, as I have already stated, did 
every thing in his power to avoid the hostile collision ; he 
had resources enough of a constitutional nature, and too 
perfect a reliance on a just cause, to recur to such means. 

Q. What were these resources ? 

A. The wealth, intelligence, public spirit, and perfect 
organization of his body detailed above, and all this under 
the immediate controul of the Head Association. 

Q. But how could these be applied ? 

A. The intelligence had been already brought to bear 
(by frequent appeals) on public opinion, on the legislature, 
on other nations; the wealth (by its influence) on public 
credit, &c.; every thing, in fine, was possible with this 
organization. 

Q. Had these appeals their effect ? 

A. The greatest ; witness the speeches in parliament, 
the interest and sympathy evinced by France and America, 
where new associations, co-operating with our own, were 
springing up every day; witness the eagerness for Irish 


117 


news and Irish publications, See., in almost every civilized 
country in the globe. 

Q. But what influncee could Catholic wealth have on 
public credit ? 

A. The greatest: the run on a few branch banks in the south 
of Ireland compelled the provincial bank to import nearly 
one million sterling in one week. Suppose this attack had 
been simultaneous and universal on all the branch banks 
of the bank of Ireland (a measure easily to be effected 
by sending down a sufficiency of bank paper to every 
parish in the country on an appointed day), it would be 
very difficult to devise means by which such an attack 
could be resisted. 

Q. But this would embarrass the entire country ? 

A. No doubt—but above all, the government. The 
breaking of a single branch bank would operate on the 
mind of the people like the breaking of the national bank 
itself; the consequences are obvious; an immediate demand 
for specie from England—an immediate limitation of discount 
—consequent difficulties in the payment of English bills 
in Ireland — bankruptcies in Ireland—bankruptcies in 
England—another and perhaps a fatal panic—confusion 
everywhere—and, need I add, danger? 

Q. But government could instantly have assisted, in such 
an emergency ? 

A. I doubt whether there would have been the material 
time ; even if there were, is it nothing to throw five or 
six millions out of the market ?—who suffers the loss of the 
interest ?—The very apprehension has already produced in 
part this result, what would have been produced by the 
reality f 

Q. But if the Association could do this, they could also 
have recommended Exclusive dealing ? 

• A. No doubt they could ; and their recommendation 
would have punctually been obeyed. 

Q. Or the non-payment of Tithes, or of Rents ? 

i 


118 


A. It would have been possible, in an extreme case, to 
have advised the people to refuse both ; and it would have 
been quite impossible to punish an universal resistance on 
the part of the people : but I am firmly persuaded the 
existing members never would have given their consent to 
expedients which could only be the forerunners of the most 
dreadful civil war. 

Q. It is true, but had the Association continued, might 
not other men, far more violent and less wise, have arisen; 
who, suited more to the increasing vehemence of the times, 
would ultimately have obtained the ascendancy, and rushed 
into these extremes ? 

A. Such a case might probably arise, nor can it be calcu¬ 
lated, under existing irritations, how soon. 

Q. Such a crisis would, no doubt, require all the wisdom 
and energy of the ministry and the legislature ? 

A. Neither would be prepared to meet the emergency ; 
the ministry and the legislature, divided against each other, 
could have no real force ; nothing could truly unite them 
but concession to the Catholics — and this would be a 
moment when national pride would prevent such concession. 

Q. Such a state of things would be indeed alarming ; it 
would invite the agression or interference of foreign 
powers ? 

A. No doubt; the very possibility of it has already in¬ 
vited their attention. The presidency of General Jackson, 
whose hostility to England is not unknown—the American 
associations, springing up in every direction, in favour of 
Ireland composed of all sects and all classes—and stimulated 
by the sufferings and recollections of Irish emigrants, (wit¬ 
ness their contributions and addresses'—the disaffection of 
Canada, and its proximity to America, all speak sufficiently 
for the new world. It would be soon followed by the old. 

Q. But we are still sufficiently protected from their 
attack; it is not the first time they have attacked Ireland, 
and failed ? 


119 


A. But the case is changed since the use of steam ; Ire-, 
land is now like a vast citadel, attackable at every point, and 
defended by a small and disaffected garrison. The ocean 
has become comparatively a rivulet, and steam has formed a 
kind of bridge. 

Q. But the same steam may bring over British as well as 
foreign troops ? 

A. True: but how is the British army composed ? It is 
principally recruited from the Irish peasantry; the Irish 
peasantry are loyal, but could they be relied on in a civil 
and religious warfare, unlike any which has preceded it ? 

Q. But are Protestants, then, to be intimidated ? and 
would you force this question by intimidation ? 

A. Far from it; it is because these dangers do not 
actually exist, and because they may possibly, at no distant 
period exist, that the present moment is so favourable to 
concession. 

Q. But these dangers are doubtful and distant ? 

A. The same assertion was made in 1792 ; but war was 
declared, and the Catholic Bill recommended, on the same 
night, in 1793. 

Q. You think, then, there are no means of giving capital 
and employment to the country—no means of dissolving the 
Association—no means of tranquillizing the Empire, but the 
settlement of this important question. 

A. None: with this settlement you can do every thing; 
without it, nothing.. But if it is to be settled at all, it must 
be settled without delay. 

Q. Why, without delay ? 

A. The parties are face to face : a single man from either 
ranks, like a single spark, may produce ignition ; a general 
conflagration would follow : who could extinguish what any 
man could raise ? 

Q. But may it not be settled by burying it in oblivion , 
or by coercion f 

A. The people could not forget what they infallibly 


120 


would be reminded of every moment by the Laws ; coercion 
or despotism, to be of any use, must be perpetual; what 
nation which thinks or feels would bear a perpetual des¬ 
potism? The oppressors themselves, as they have done so 
before, would be the first to cry out against the oppression ; 
they would find agriculture and commerce perishing, starva¬ 
tion following, discord everywhere, civilization retrograde, 
the rest of Europe advancing, and Ireland the last country 
in Europe. What Irishman could really wish for such a 
state, what Freeman could desire that such a state should be 
perpetual ? 

Q. What, then, is to be done ? 

A. You cannot extinguish, you cannot coerce —you must 
do justice ; there is no alternative, but immediate and 
total Emancipation. 

Q. But what do you, or any reasonable man, expect from 
Emancipation ? 

A. The reverse of all this; change the causes, and you 
will soon change the effects. 

Q. But dare the Minister of England (for a Minister 
only can carry it) attempt the passing of such a measure ? 

A. The Minister of England, with an immense patronage, 
the will of a large portion of the Protestant, and the entire 
of the Catholic population in his favour; but above all, with 
the noble conviction of truth and sound policy in his heart, 
may safely dare the measure, and trust himself unfearingly 
to the support of the country—the approbation of Europe— 

and the gratitude and admiration of posterity. 

♦ 

V 

FINIS. 


( A 


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